Looking to the Woods

by Frédérique Molay

  “You should walk a bit,” Captain Noumen said. He helped the older man up, and they took a few unsteady steps. “What do you fish for here?”

  “Carp. But I don’t kill them. I throw them back after I catch them. I’m no murderer.”

  Noumen smiled. Now that catch would have been too easy.

  “Cool,” he said.

  “Yes, I like just getting out and enjoying the peace and quiet.”

  Noumen could see that the man was finally beginning to feel better. He was no longer wobbly.

  “They’ve ruined my spot now. I won’t ever be able to go back. What if I had found a whole body? I can’t even stand hurting a fish.”

  “Next time, you might want to take a friend.”

  The man nodded. “Maybe.”

  “So tell me, did you notice anything out of the ordinary?”

  “You mean other than the leg?” The fisherman had an incredulous look on his face. “That’s plenty, don’t you think?”

  “I’ll give you that. But I was thinking about someone hanging around or anything else.”

  The fisherman shook his head. Suddenly he stopped in his tracks.

  “I heard some barking and growling earlier. It was coming from over there,” he said, looking toward the woods.

  The Belgian Malinois were sniffing the leg like hungry wolves and yanking at their leashes when Nico’s phone rang.

  “The fisherman heard dogs fighting on the other side of the stream and some men calling them off,” Maurin said.

  “Ten four. We’ll check it out.”

  Nico ended the call and passed along the message. Then he turned his attention back to the canine unit—short-haired dogs, known for their power and speed. Their ears perked, the dogs waited for the signal. Finally, Nico gave the handlers the nod, and they rushed off, following the scent of the flesh. If the rest of the body was in the woods, the dogs would find it.

  15

  An arm with no hand. Bite marks, probably from the dogs the fisherman had heard.

  “DNA analysis will confirm whether the arm and leg belong to the same person,” Vidal told Nico.

  “The two limbs seem to be similarly . . . fresh,” Kriven said.

  “And cut with a handsaw, it seems,” Vidal added.

  “Are there any distinguishing marks?” Nico asked.

  “I don’t see any,” Kriven said.

  “Over here.” The voice was coming from about ten meters away.

  “I’m on it,” Maurin said, heading off.

  Nico started in the same direction. Nobody spoke. The only sounds were the barking of the dogs and the crunching of branches and twigs underfoot.

  “Chief, we’ve got something,” Maurin called out.

  Nico caught up. The canine handlers had pulled the dogs back.

  “A hand.”

  Rodon was already getting fingerprints. He turned the palm over and manipulated the phalanges. He would rehydrate the digits in a bit of water. Then he would inject fluid into them to give them the same shape and flexibility they had when the hand was attached to a living person. He would then apply the powder and press the prints onto a white sheet of paper. He would do the same with the palm.

  “I’ll send Noumen over to the lab with these,” Maurin said.

  “Over here,” came the voice of another man.

  “I’ll get it,” Lieutenant Almeida said.

  Nico turned back to the hand. The image of the autonomous hand in the The Addams Family popped into his head. “Same kind of cut?”

  “Looks like it,” Rodon said. “Clean bone cut at the wrist. Ragged skin. I’m going to see what they found over there.”

  “Another hand,” Almeida warned.

  “Rodon!” Nico yelled. “Is yours right or left?”

  “Right, Chief.”

  “Here, too.”

  They could hear footsteps.

  “It’s a child’s hand,” Almeida said.

  “Could it be . . .” Rodon dared to ask.

  Nobody finished the sentence.

  “Shit, just say it,” Vidal spit out.

  “Kevin Longin’s right hand?” Maurin said.

  A falling tree makes more noise than a growing forest, Nico thought, remembering the African proverb from somewhere. Maybe from one of Dimitri’s classes.

  “There’s writing on the palm,” Almeida said.

  Vidal examined it. “It’s an address. Rue de Théâtre. Not far from the Seine. Isn’t there a residential hotel around there?”

  “Yes,” Almeida said. “A pretty big one.”

  “And look—there’s another number: 245.”

  Kriven shot Captain Plassard a look. “Check it out.”

  Plassard grabbed his cell phone and looked up the address.

  The head dog handler called out to Nico. “The dogs are running in circles. There’s nothing else to find.”

  “Thanks. You’re free to go.”

  Plassard looked up from the phone. “Yep, that’s the hotel. Three hundred and seventy-five suites.”

  “Maurin, finish up here!” Nico shouted. “David, get your team. We’re going to the hotel—now.”

  Like the dogs, he had finally gotten a good whiff.

  Captain Noumen hurried into the identification lab. He spotted the police captain in charge of the eight staff members who analyzed thousands of fingerprints and palm prints every month. The job required the patience of a sphinx and excellent eyes.

  “Hey, we’ve got a priority case here. Chief Sirsky’s orders.”

  He handed over the sealed evidence envelope. The officer opened it and removed the fingerprints. He scanned them into his computer.

  “Have a seat,” he told Noumen.

  Noumen did as he was told. The room was silent, except for the tapping on the keyboards. Everyone was staring at a screen.

  The fingerprint examiner inspected the print’s ridges and bifurcations. This was extremely precise work. Then he scanned the print into a database and launched a comparison. The French database had more than four million prints belonging to people who had committed crimes, as well as two hundred thousand unidentified prints. The machine would propose twenty-five possible matches, and the examiner would then determine if there was an actual match among them. To be valid in court, the print had to have twelve matching points and no variations.

  “This will take ten to fifteen minutes.”

  “What’s the likelihood that you’ll find who they belong to?”

  “We identify 30 percent of the prints we get, so roughly one in three.”

  If the hand belonged to a criminal, Noumen thought. Just then, the screen blinked, and twenty-five candidates popped up. With any luck, one would end the career of the handsaw killer.

  Rue du Théâtre was a long one-way street that ended at a cluster of tall buildings linked by enclosed raised walkways—not the best example of modern urban architecture. The police cars braked in front of the hotel’s impressive entrance. Although the building looked uninviting, it appeared to be quite popular, judging by the number of people coming and going—probably because it was a mere twenty-minute walk from the Eiffel Tower.

  The sliding doors opened for Nico, and he hurried through the luxurious lobby to the ultramodern reception desk. Behind it were two women wearing navy-blue jackets and red scarves. One looked up and smiled. Nico pulled out his badge.

  “I’d like to know if room 245 is occupied.”

  The woman typed into the computer, her fingers trembling. Seeing her anxiety, the other woman answered for her.

  “Yes, it was booked for a week.”

  “Since when?”

  “Saturday.”

  “And by whom?”

  “Someone named Fritz Haarmann.”

  “Can you spell that, please?”

  She spelled the name.

  “What type of room is it?”

  “It’s a two-room, fifty-five-square-meter suite,” the first receptionist said. “There’s a bedroom with a king-
size bed, a living room with a large-screen television, a fully equipped kitchen area, and a bathroom with a bathtub and separate WC.”

  She knew her rooms by heart.

  “How did Mr. Haarmann pay?”

  “In cash.”

  “How much?”

  “The apartment goes for 240 euros a night. Times seven nights, that comes to 1,680 euros.”

  “Has anyone from your staff gone into the apartment since Saturday?”

  “Mr. Haarmann said he didn’t want the apartment cleaned. Housecleaning was scheduled for the end of his stay.”

  “Thank you.”

  They both smiled.

  “It was a pleasure, sir,” the first one said. “Have a good day.”

  The two women turned back to their computers.

  Nico leaned over the counter. “Sorry, I’m not done yet. I need to get into that suite. And to do that, I need a key card.”

  “Sir, that suite is still occupied,” the second receptionist said. “We can’t let you in.”

  Nico flashed them a reassuring smile and then said firmly, “This is a police investigation.”

  As he said this, the women looked to their right. He followed their gaze and spotted a man in a suit heading their way. Most likely, he was the manager.

  “Can I help you?” he asked as soon as he reached the desk.

  “Chief Nico Sirsky. We need to get into room 245.”

  “Of course.” The man turned around and fetched a key card. He frowned at the receptionists and smiled at Nico. “We’re at your service, Inspector.”

  “Thank you. Please don’t inform any of your guests of our presence or do anything that could interfere with the investigation.” He looked at the two receptionists, whose expressions made them look like scolded children.

  “Which elevator?” he asked.

  “Over there,” the women blurted in unison, pointing in the same direction.

  “What floor?”

  “Twenty-second.”

  Nico turned around. “Two men on the stairs, the others with me.”

  Captain Plassard headed toward the stairs, taking another team member with him. Kriven hit the button for the elevator, while Nico called Maurin.

  “The suite was reserved in the name of a Fritz Haarmann—that’s two a’s and two n’s. He paid cash. See what you can find out.”

  The elevator doors opened like the jaws of a shark.

  “We’re heading up to the suite now.”

  “Be careful.”

  They filed into the elevator.

  “What did she say?” Kriven asked.

  “‘Be careful.’”

  “Be careful?” Vidal said. “When was the last time we took that advice seriously?”

  “At lunch the day before yesterday, when you wanted to order oysters with mignonette sauce at that hole in the wall,” Almeida said. “Aren’t you glad you exercised proper caution?”

  “Yeah, you got a point,” Vidal said. “The way those oysters looked, I could have wound up sick as a dog.”

  Nico didn’t say anything and just stared at the elevator doors. He had a bad feeling that they’d all be feeling sicker than a dog in the next couple of minutes.

  He had done it perfectly. It was a masterpiece. In the end, killing wasn’t so difficult. It was an exercise in style. He had to admit that he liked it. No, like wasn’t a strong enough word. He had felt an extraordinary shiver, an adrenaline surge. Fritz Haarmann, Hanover, 1923. A thrilling trip back in time. A little history lesson. He’d done his part.

  But had he fulfilled his own fantasies or just copied those of another? Did his pleasure come from the perfect execution of his mission or from the depths of his soul? How could he know?

  “Hi,” he said, arriving at his destination.

  He sat down at their table. Some were focused on their screens. Others glanced at him discreetly. What did they see? Could they tell how different he was now?

  Number 245. Nico knocked. Nothing. He waved to Kriven, who held out the key card. Nico and the other team members pulled out their semiautomatic 9mm SIG Sauers and prepared to breach the door. After a glance around and a nod, he kicked it open, and they swept into the suite like shadows.

  When the odor hit him, Nico’s knees buckled. He stopped breathing just long enough to collect himself. Then, arms straight and gun in front of him, he entered the bedroom.

  The sopping sheets gleamed in the sunshine streaming through the picture window. The scarlet fluid was pooled on the floor.

  Nico heard raspy breathing to his right.

  “Almeida, if you’re going to lose your breakfast, please do it outside,” he said.

  His own heart was racing.

  “I’ll be okay, Chief.”

  “You know nobody will hold it against you.”

  “Apartment clear!” Kriven yelled. “You need to see the living room. It’s a real slaughterhouse.”

  From the hallway, they heard Plassard. “Is it over? Did we miss it?”

  He hadn’t seen anything yet. A few seconds later they heard him again. “Shit.”

  “Is that the best you can do?” Vidal asked. “How about, ‘Holy mother of all shit!’?”

  Nico knew exactly what Vidal was trying to do. But in this carnage, nothing could lighten the mood. He couldn’t stop staring at the bloody bed. Almeida’s gaze, however, was fixed elsewhere.

  “Chief, there’s something on the wall.”

  “‘All for three round . . . coins,’” Nico read out loud.

  It was the same red ink and spidery handwriting. What had Małgorzata Włodarczyk, the Polish professor, said? “Down the chimney comes Santa Claus. But where, oh where, are all the toys? In his big bag, at the bottom . . . One by one here they come: one piglet fair, two teddy bears, three round balloons in tow, four planes a pretty lemon yellow, five yummy candies—oh!”

  It should have been “three round balloons,” but the bastard had changed it up. A small dish holding three euro coins was on the bed. Three round coins. But that wasn’t all.

  “Chief!” It was Kriven, who had come up behind Nico and, in turn, discovered the decapitated head. It had been carefully placed on the sheet with its eyes wide open.

  “What kind of lunatic would do this?” Kriven asked.

  Once again, Nico had no answer. He turned to Almeida.

  “That looks like a bite on the neck, doesn’t it?”

  Almeida holstered his gun and inspected the wound. “Let me get my kit.”

  “There are body parts in the living room,” Kriven said. “And . . . You’ve got to come see it for yourself.”

  Nico followed Kriven into the living room and kitchen area. His eyes were immediately drawn to the panoramic view of the capital. The room was ultramodern: flat-screen television, fake wood flooring, a sofa upholstered in a geometric pattern, chrome finishes. He spotted an open bottle of Moët & Chandon, but just one glass. The killer probably took his so he wouldn’t leave any evidence. But why had he bothered, if he had bitten the victim?

  “The table is set for two,” Plassard said.

  “And the main course is ready to be served.” Kriven pointed to a piece of nauseating offal.

  “Brain,” Vidal said. “Some old-timers still eat it, and you can get it at most butcher shops.”

  “Almeida?” Nico called out. “Can you tell me if the skull is intact?”

  With that, they heard Almeida running down the hall to throw up in a trash can.

  “Well, clearly, this dude is out of his mind,” Vidal said.

  And the victim was a dude, too. His penis lay on the coffee table.

  “Plassard, go take care of the hotel,” Nico said. “The rest of you, get to work. Get everything you can here, and then we’ll have the morgue pick up what remains of the body. I want you questioning people on this floor. The message is obvious: this is our copycat. I want your undivided attention on this. Remember, we’ve got the second right hand found in the Bois de Vincennes—a child’s hand,
and I’m betting it belongs to Kevin Longin. The killer is leaving bread crumbs. He wants us to know it’s him. He’s playing a game, and right now, he’s the one marking the trail. Let’s get a move on.”

  The fingerprint examiner scrolled through the possible matches. Each had a score based on the convergence between the recorded fingerprint and the adult hand found in the Bois de Vincennes, but the software didn’t have the final say. Now it was up to the examiner, who was comparing the results.

  “It looks like we’ve found him,” he said, printing up an identification report.

  Noumen was pacing. They weren’t done yet. The two men moved into the next room, where the paper fingerprint cards were stored. It felt like Ali Baba’s cave. The examiner found the card in question and returned to the first room, where he placed it in a projector. The two fingerprint samples were enlarged on the screen, and the examiner began a manual comparison of the whorls and lines. It was important to be absolutely sure, as any error could bring an entire criminal investigation into question.

  Noumen got lost for a while in the twists and turns on the screen, unable to make out the similarities and differences. He felt nauseated. How did this man do it all day long?

  “It’s him, without a doubt,” the examiner said, with the first indication of any emotion in his voice.

  Commander Maurin swallowed hard in the silence of the office. She grabbed her phone and called her immediate superior, Deputy Chief Rost.

  “What did you find?” he asked without preamble.

  “Fritz Haarmann is the Butcher of Hanover. Our copycat is having the time of his life, I’d say.”

  16

  Tanya emerged from the Faidherbe-Chaligny metro station. Directly across the street was Saint Antoine Hospital, flanked by a bar and a café. The hospital was a registered historical landmark, and Tanya, an architect, had long admired the building’s design, with its arched entrance and courtyard.

  She passed under the French flag and the inscription “Liberté, égalité, fraternité,” and headed toward the Jacques Caroli Building. She hurried past the gift shop and cafeteria, glancing at the tired and anxious faces of visitors grabbing coffee and a bite to eat before returning to their loved ones’ rooms.