Frost and Ashes (Daniel Trokics Series Book 2)

by Inger Wolf

  Finally, Trokic said, "Not much doubt about this; it's Mathias Riise beating up a bunch of kids."

  He pushed his chair back and crossed his legs. "Let's pick him up right now. What do we know about the site where all this was uploaded?"

  Lisa was already looking at it. "It's in English. But I've done a Whois search on the domain; it's on a Russian server."

  She automatically took a screenshot. This was evidence, and because they couldn't do anything at the moment with the site it was on, they had to use other methods.

  "But, surely, we can see who put it on the net," Trokic said.

  "All we can see is a username, LetMeIntroduceYou_DK, and that doesn't do us much good. The owners might have more information about their users; they might have an IP address."

  "Can't you just call and ask? Maybe they’ll just give us the information."

  "But there's no contact info on the homepage. And like I said, it's on a Russian server. That makes it a lot harder to work with. The Russians have almost no legislation on this type of thing. It's a big problem internationally."

  Trokic sighed demonstratively and sloshed the last of his coffee around in his cup before emptying it. "It's also the damn press and TV. If they hadn't started talking about it so much, we wouldn't have this sort of thing here."

  "I agree, it's a sick picture of the world we get from the media. But I don't think we can blame them directly. They can't predict this type of thing, and you can't censor out all human perversions."

  "No, but we know how everyone wants to be a media star, and if you show five million people a new way to attract attention, some of them are going to go for it. The media's partly responsible for starting this fire and keeping it going. A third of our districts have already had cases like this."

  "Maybe the press didn't think this would happen in Denmark."

  "No, that's too naïve. Even the crime prevention programs out where it hasn't reached yet are being careful; they don't want to create a problem for themselves."

  He stood up and stretched his legs. "We really have to watch out with this type of stuff. You know what happened in the States after the shootings at Columbine; before long, there were copycats all over the place. Usually, nothing serious happens, but we all know about the tragedies that did happen. And now we have massacres and shootings everywhere, like in Erfurt and Osaka. And Virginia Tech. He sure got the media status he was after. And he's inspired generations of young psychotic haters with access to semi-automatic weapons."

  "Maybe," Lisa said. "But that's the media world. They have to get their story, and I don't think we can change that."

  "Let's hear what the boy has to say. And tell Jacob and Jasper to bring Gabriel Jensen in for questioning. I want to hear his explanation about that walker."

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Mathias Riise sat on the edge of his bed, listening through the walls to the murmur of the morning talk show in the living room. He tried to block out the riot of thoughts in his head. Nikolaj had come over the day before, and they'd found a few new interesting places for their films. They both felt the irresistible urge to shatter taboos on the net, but as soon as his friend left, anxiety started creeping in again like some gas oozing in under the door. A vague anxiety that joined in with the excitement rolling through his veins.

  The net was his hiding place now, a refuge where he could have a different identity. Be seen. Like he'd also been seen earlier. But now he was the one in charge. The roles were switched, and he was no longer the victim.

  Or was he? Somebody knew what he’d been doing. He'd gotten several letters, and he couldn't figure it out. What did the person who sent them expect? That he’d stop? He couldn't; what would be left of him, who would he be? And really, what could this person do to him?

  He remembered the first time he had to do it. It was after his dad left them and started another family across the country because a blood test showed that Mathias's little brother Frederick wasn't his son. Even back then, she’d used fire against him. If you do it, everything will be fine, and if you don't do it, everything will be really bad. Bad was when Mathias refused, and she stuck him in the closet in the hall and said the fire would come get him if he didn't do what he was told. Then she had showed him the grisly burn marks that covered her upper body like a bombed-out landscape that made him think of small snakes and hell. She told him how the fire had almost gotten her when she hadn't done what her parents told her to. Once when he started screaming in the dark, she had even lit a match close to the door so he could smell the smoke through the cracks. He'd been so scared that he pissed his pants.

  Gradually, over the years, she seemed to lose interest in him, though. He got bigger and stronger, his voice changed, and he was definitely too big for the closet. The younger ones took his place and had to do it.

  But mostly, he felt shame, not anxiety. Shame that led to anger. And guilt. Because he was the one who had begged for a little sister, one who could take his and Frederick's place. Now, Julie was a daily reminder of that.

  His hands played with his phone. His tool. The director's camera. He’d learned so much over the past year. And his status on the net had shot up from a nobody beginner to someone they all turned to. In his own universe, he was king. He had tried to keep from being discovered, but somebody seemed to know.

  He jumped when Jonna jerked on the door. She'd never learned to knock, whether it was the bedroom or the bathroom. It was part of the game. She wanted to show that she owned him, that she had the right to enter his most private areas. Which is why he’d learned to use a key.

  "What do you want?" he yelled at the locked door.

  He realized she’d turned down the TV. The house was remarkably quiet. For a moment, all he heard was the sounds of the old stable: a weak moaning at the window where the wind slipped in, a long, drawn-out creaking from the rafters.

  "The police are here. They want to speak to you."

  He shivered. He could hear it in her voice; she was telling the truth. Probably, they were standing right behind her. Why did they want to talk to him? He'd told them everything. Quickly, he shoved the phone under his mattress and wiped his hands on his pants.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Lieutenant Daniel Trokic's mind emptied as he stared at the young, closed face. Mathias Riise had spent a half hour sitting on a graffiti-filled bench in the small waiting room, while he and Lisa discussed strategy and gathered up the information they had. Now, the boy gazed around Trokic's office while chewing on a hangnail.

  The teenager looked as if he was fighting a losing battle to keep up with his friends on the clothes front. His white sweatshirt had most likely looked fine once, but it had been washed so many times that the blue print on the front was peeling off. He needed a haircut too; his black hair drooped under its own weight, plus that of the hair wax he used. He looked worn out and scruffy. But did this have anything to do with Lukas? And the fires?

  Trokic set the recorder on the table and got comfortable in his chair. Lisa sat beside him with a stack of papers to refer to. When she'd showed up at the office an hour earlier, her eyes had been puffy as if she'd been crying. Trokic had glanced over at Jacob, who then assured him that a long, late-night talk had made her feel better.

  Finally, they were joined by a late middle-aged male caseworker from social services, who silently scribbled in his notepad. The law required the presence of a social worker when questioning a minor.

  "Like I explained, Mathias," Trokic said, "we'd like you to tell us again what you were doing the afternoon of Thursday, January 4."

  Mathias squirmed in his chair. "I already told you."

  "I know, but we want to hear it again." Lisa smiled and poured a glass of water.

  Trokic tried to read the teenager's face. Mathias clearly didn't want to be there. And he didn't want to cooperate, it looked like. They would have to sort out the lies from the truth, pick through the maze of words and versions of reality he was going to offer
them. Trokic stopped thinking and let his intuition follow the patterns created by the boy’s particular blend of body language and speech. Criminals often found it easy to lie and did so convincingly, but many times they weren't aware of what they could lie about. And one single mistake could topple their entire house of cards. Interrogations had affected Trokic's private life, in that he wanted nothing to do with a person dishonest about anything, really.

  Interrogations weren't Trokic's greatest strength. One day last fall, Agersund had declared that personally, he'd rather confide in a hippopotamus than Trokic. He'd then enrolled his detective in a tailor-made seminar on interrogation techniques. Three excruciating days for Trokic because the leader was a psychologist who believed they had to know themselves before they could know others. It had taken an almost superhuman effort by Trokic to keep the trauma- and crisis-crazed psychobabbler at arm’s length and explain to her that there was "nice to know" and "need to know," and his private life didn’t belong to the latter.

  His "immature attitude toward working in a cross-psychological context" had not gone unnoticed by Agersund, who therefore had decided never again to earmark thousands of crowns to send his second-in-command on any similar seminar. That’s how things stood now. Though Trokic was working on his abilities privately.

  "You and your buddy Nikolaj say you were together the afternoon Lukas disappeared. You were in school until two forty-five, we’ve confirmed that, so what did you do the rest of the afternoon?"

  Mathias sighed demonstratively. "Do I have to tell you everything again?"

  "Yes, please."

  "Okay then. Nikolaj and I went over to the supermarket for a cola, then we came home to my place. Mom was in Århus for some reason, and we grabbed something to eat from the refrigerator and went into my room."

  He spat out the sentences rapidly to emphasize that they’d already heard this.

  "And what did you do in your room?"

  "We played World of Warcraft. On the net."

  "You didn’t say anything about that before," Trokic said.

  "No, I couldn’t see why it was so important. But that’s what we did."

  The social worker looked up from his notebook and pulled his glasses down on his nose.

  "Did you talk to anyone on the net? Anyone who might be able to confirm you were there? It might help you."

  Mathias picked at the edge of the table. "I really can’t remember. Maybe Nikolaj can." He looked back and forth between the two of them, checking to see their reaction.

  "What about your brother and sister? Were they home, did they see you?"

  "No. Frederick was with Thomas, a friend of his. I asked him about that later. And I don’t know where Julie was. I’m not her babysitter, not anymore."

  "So, you were in there all afternoon?"

  "Yeah, until about five. Nikolaj went home, and I watched TV until Frederick came home about five-thirty. He got his clothes dirty over at Thomas’s, so we stuck them in the washing machine and started it up. We didn’t want Mom to get pissed. When we were done with that, Lukas’s mom knocked on the door and wanted us to help look for him. She was super worried; it’s like she was begging us, so we couldn’t say no."

  "Did you help look for him all evening?"

  "Yeah, and Mom came home too sometime. I can’t remember when. We took a break and came back and ate some pizza from the freezer."

  "Okay, fine, but if we go back to the time between two forty-five and five, Nikolaj is the only person who can confirm where you were, right?" Trokic said.

  Mathias shrugged and plopped back in his seat.

  Trokic sat for a moment, thinking about what the boy had told him. His explanation was the same as last time, just put in a bit of a different way. Very common when people explained things twice.

  "What about last Monday between eleven and twelve p.m. Where were you then?"

  "Why?"

  "Because an elderly lady was burned to death in that time period."

  "I was in bed asleep. You can ask my mom."

  "I’m not so sure that’s going to be good enough. Theoretically, you could have snuck out after you went to bed. I’m assuming she didn’t watch over you all night?"

  He shook his head. His shoulders sunk a bit, and Trokic leaned back in his chair and folded his hands behind his neck. It was getting hot in the room, and he regretted putting on his heavy dark blue sweater that morning.

  The teenage boy swallowed hard, and his eyes darted around. He sat on his hands as if he was trying to stop them from shaking.

  Trokic was considering how to approach the issue of the phone clips on the net with the boy when Jasper opened the door and stuck his head inside. "Can I have a word with you?"

  Trokic stood up and sent his detective a sharp look. Jasper was very aware that he didn’t tolerate being disturbed during a questioning. He shut off the recording. "I’m assuming it’s important?"

  "Yes."

  He pulled him out into the hallway. "We got a search warrant for the boy’s room…"

  Trokic listened intently while he filled up his thermos.

  Chapter Fifty

  Detective Jacob Hviid sat with Gabriel Jensen in an interrogation room close to Trokic’s office. Earlier, when Jensen opened his door and saw the police were back, his face had fallen, and he’d quietly followed them to the car outside. Without his walker.

  Jacob sensed that Jensen knew what was going to happen. He looked white as a sheet, and his gray eyes fluttered around the room.

  "You’re not using your walker?" Jacob said.

  "No," Jensen mumbled. "I don’t need it anymore."

  "If I’m understanding certain witnesses correctly, you haven’t needed it for some time. You’ve been seen shopping in Brugsen and other places. And not only that, on January fourth at about three-thirty, a woman in Mårslet saw Lukas Mørk get into a car on Hørretvej that looks like the one in your garage."

  Jensen’s face showed no emotion as he stared into space for several moments. "I took him with me," he finally said. He exhaled as if he’d been holding his breath several hours.

  "Let’s take it from the beginning," Jacob said, trying to suppress his excitement. Was this it, a confession? The explanation they’d been waiting for? He barely dared breathe; the last thing in the world he wanted to do was to break Jensen’s chain of thought.

  "I was driving by, and I saw him there on the side of the road. He looked so little, and it was freezing, but he was dressed warmly. So I pulled over and opened my passenger door. Asked him if he wanted to come home with me, see the two new insects in my collection. First, he said he didn’t want to; he had to get home. So I said, ‘C’mon, it won’t take long.’ And he hopped in the car."

  "Just like that? You expect me to believe he hopped in a car with a complete stranger, just to see a couple of insects?"

  "I wasn’t no stranger. He’s been at my place lots of times before. So he could follow along with the collection. Sometimes, we watched a movie too. But that was only when his parents thought he was with one of his school friends."

  "So, you’re saying you knew each other. How long have you had this…relationship?"

  "About a year. I met him in the field over behind my house; he was out collecting insects. He was real good at it."

  Jensen sounded enthused. "He knew the difference between the different species. So I invited him in to look at my collection. Not many people have seen it; it’s a damn nice one, you got to admit–"

  "So, while he was there, you took the opportunity to feel around on him, right?" Jacob could hardly hide his disgust.

  "No, sirree, I’ve never touched any kids. I just like them."

  "But they turn you on?"

  Jensen lowered his eyes without answering.

  "So, last Thursday when you picked him up, where did you take him? Your place? Did you torture him with fire?"

  Jensen sounded horrified. "No, no, oh, no, I didn’t do a thing to him. We drove to my place, and he ha
d a cola. I drank a beer. And we had a look at the beetles I collected last fall, and we talked about them. He seemed to lose track of time; he asked if we could watch a movie, but I didn’t dare. I was taking a big chance already, and his folks were waiting for him. So I drove him back close to where I picked him up and dumped him off there. That’s the last I saw of him."

  Jacob leaned back and thought about what he’d just heard. "How long did all that take?"

  "I don’t know. A half hour, maybe. No, probably more like an hour."

  Jacob thought about the image from the bakery’s surveillance camera. If Jensen was telling the truth, it might fit with Lukas walking by. The time would be about right. But who was the other person in the picture?

  "You didn’t change your mind and follow Lukas after you let him out of the car?"

  "No, no. I drove back home. That was the last I had to do with him until I heard the news the next day. Then I got scared."

  "Scared? Why?"

  "Of you finding out he’d been with me. I know how you cops are; you’re always thinking the worst in people."

  "And that’s why you pulled that little stunt with the walker on us?"

  He nodded and wiped off a shiny stripe of drool from his chin. Jacob knew he couldn’t let him go. If Jensen was guilty, he couldn’t have him out on the street.

  "I’m really thirsty," Jensen said. "Thirsty as hell. I need a beer."

  "It’s going to be a while before you drink a beer again."

  Jacob looked at his watch. "It’s 11:42 p.m. You’re under arrest for the murder of Lukas Mørk."

  Chapter Fifty-One