by Willow Rose
"You startled me," I said.
He smiled gently. "Sorry. I didn't mean to."
"How long have you been there? Were you listening in on our conversation?" I asked.
"No. I already talked to Officer Lindstroem earlier." He lifted his notepad in the air. "Got all the details I needed. Scary stuff, huh?"
I scoffed. "It sure is."
I stared at Sune who was eagerly dancing around shooting pictures of everything and anyone who moved. The blue van arrived and people in blue bodysuits entered under the crime tape. Sune shot a series of pictures of them in action.
"He is good," Christian said.
"The very best," I said with a smile.
"So what's the story of you two, if you don't mind me asking?" Christian dropped his eyes when he spoke. It was kind of cute. Shyness looked good on him and made him far more attractive. I smiled.
"There is no deal. We're colleagues, that's all."
"So you've never ...?" Christian lifted his face and our eyes met. I couldn't believe he would stand here at a scene of crime and ask me a question like this. It was so inappropriate and yet a little sweet too.
"I don't think it's any of your business," I said.
He blushed and dropped his eyes again. "No of course it isn't. No I'm sorry ... I didn't mean to ... I think I'll be going now," he said and started walking.
Sune approached me with a huge smile. "I think I got some really great shots," he said. Then he showed me on the display of the camera. "Satisfied?" He asked.
I nodded. "Very. Looks like another front page."
"So what did Christian want?" Sune asked.
"What? Oh nothing. Just chatting."
"He has become quite chatty lately," Sune said.
"Well he is new to the area. Maybe he’s just looking for friends."
"Maybe," Sune said. "So now what, boss?"
I interviewed the pizza delivery boy and then the scared elderly people living in the area they used to consider so safe and Sune took some pictures of them for the second article. They were all very good. The pizza delivery boy told in detail how he had entered the house with the pizza and then saw the flood of blood on the ground. He cried when I asked what the body looked like, so I didn't ask him for more specifics about it. The blood on the floor was scary enough. Jens-Ole had to make do with that.
Sune and I both waited till the body left the house and was taken away in an ambulance before we drove back to the office in silence. I wrote two articles that made it to my editor just in time for deadline.
Chapter 24
I slept in the next day. Or at least I tried to. I thought I had deserved it after the long day I had the day before. My article about the history of lobotomy had been postponed since the new killing filled most of the paper so my editor told me to take it easy and come in before lunch. He already had an article for the next day's paper, so I didn't have to write anything new.
Dad made sure Julie got in school on time while I took an extra hour in bed. It felt good to rest a little even if I did have a hard time relaxing. I wondered about all the killings. I kept seeing the pictures of Susanne Larsen from the police report. This was the killer's third victim, so now we could definitely call him a serial killer. He did seem to have his rituals and used the same modus operandi on all of his victims. But where was the connection? Were they all random victims? Did he get his satisfaction from the ritual of the kill? Or was there something deeper to this?
I realized I wasn't going to get any more sleep so I got out of bed and got dressed. I ran downstairs and grabbed a piece of toast that Dad had left out for me.
Five minutes later I entered the editorial room with my laptop under my arm. Sara looked at me.
"I thought you were going to sleep in today?"
"Me too," I said with a smile. I sat at my desk and opened my computer. Julie was smiling at me from my screen. I hadn't spent much time with her lately, I thought. I had to make it up to her somehow. I didn't want to abandon her like her father had. She needed me more than ever since I was the only parent in her life right now.
"Found your guy for you," Sara said and waved a yellow post-it note in the air.
"My guy? Mogens Holst?" I asked.
"Yup. Wasn't easy though. But once I saw his picture on the Internet I knew I had seen him somewhere. Turns out I had. He lives in the basement of the house next to one of my sister's friends. Doesn't look like the picture much anymore, though. He’s grown a beard and lost a lot of weight. But it's definitely him. I checked with the National Registry and there is a Mogens Lundgreen living on that address. I found out that Lundgreen was his mother's maiden name."
I looked at her impressed. Sara knew everybody around here. "Does that mean he’s in our area?"
"Sure does. He lives just outside of Naestved at old Olsen's farm. It was closed down a couple of years ago when the owner Bjarke Olsen died. The wife, Esther, lives there alone and rents out the basement. She sold off all the land and lives off the money now. "
"That is great news. But changing his last name also means that he doesn't want to be found. So I'd better not call in advance."
"You’re certain that you want to talk to this guy?" Sara asked.
"Very. Why?"
"Everything I’ve found about him states that he’s a fraud. His book, his research. Everything is phony."
I exhaled knowing that she might be right.
Sune entered the door whistling a Frank Sinatra song.
"I thought he wasn't working today?" Sara looked at me. "You're not doing an article for tomorrow, are you?"
"No, but I called him in anyway," I said and waved at him. "I need his help for something else and yours too."
"I want you to go through all three police-reports and the Internet and find out every detail you can about the victims," I said to Sara and Sune as soon as he had taken off his jacket and gotten his first cup of coffee from the kitchen.
Sune nodded, sipping his coffee. Sara listened with a focused look.
"I want to know where they are from, where they went to school, if they have any siblings, children or other family members, where they worked, marriage status, basically everything about them. I want to know if there is any connection between them - anything at all. Even small things like they all ate the same type of chocolate or drank the same drink in the same bar or something like that. Whatever you can find that could link these three people together. I know the police are probably doing the exact same thing right now, but if there is a connection I want to be first with the story. I really want to be the one to stop people from being afraid. As the situation is right now everybody is a possible victim and that creates fear among people. I know I’m afraid for my family and you have probably thought about it too."
Both Sune and Sara nodded. I continued:
"I for one want to find some kind of pattern here so I don't have to fear one of my loved ones will be the next victim. Can you help me do that?"
Sara and Sune looked at each other and nodded. "Sure," they said in unison.
"Great. Meanwhile I'll pay Mogens Lundgreen a visit."
It was raining when I drove towards Naestved. The farm was situated somewhere in the middle between Karrebaeksminde and Naestved. As soon as I was out of town the hilly landscape revealed all its beauty. The dark clouds heavy with rain gave it an obscure light. It was a little gloomy. Fall in Denmark always made me feel melancholy, I thought as I drove through the bare hills and vast and empty landscape. The leaves on the trees were in so many colors now. It was beautiful, splendid, an explosion of colors. It was only for a few weeks every year that you got to enjoy the many orange and brown colors on the trees. Soon they would all be on the ground and soon after that they would be gone. The trees would be barren for months and months while darkness ruled all winter. Like Julie would say when she was younger, the trees looked like they were “broken.” The temperature had already dropped a lot the last few days and I turned on the heat in the car.
Now I opened the window for a few minutes just to feel the air. That was the one thing I did like at this time of year. It was so crisp and clear. But soon it would be so cold it would be biting in my cheeks.
I sighed and closed the window again. I loved summer and this year we had had more of it than we could ever hope for, but it always filled me with great sadness to see it go, it was like saying goodbye to an old friend every time. One you knew you'd miss insanely in just a few weeks.
The old farm house looked sinister in the darkness from the sky above. I drove up the long driveway and parked the car in the gravel in front of it. It had stopped raining but a cold North wind hit me in the face and reminded me again that winter was right around the corner. In a little over a month the darkness would take over. I shivered at the thought.
It was an old and worn building. Walls were cracking and paint peeling. The grass had grown wild and weeds were growing between tiles and cracks in the stairs leading to the main entrance. Stairs lead down to the basement. I walked down. The door had a frosted window. I knocked.
A dog started barking but there was no answer. I knocked again.
"Hello?" I yelled. "Is anyone here?"
Still no answer. It started to rain again. The cold wind made it feel like ice hitting my face. Damn weather. No wonder people were depressed in this country. From now on and until Christmas it would only get worse. The days would get shorter and darker. The sun would rise late - around eight - and set around four in the afternoon. Some days we wouldn't even see the sun because of the heavy gray clouds. Anyone who was outdoors would hurry to get back inside; people would rush to work, to their cars, to the shed at the bus stop to get shelter. People would walk huddled, crouching to avoid getting the cold wind and rain in their face. The lack of sun made us tired, irritable and we hardly had the energy to look at each other or even say hello to anyone we didn't know.
I sighed and knocked again.
The dog was barking wildly behind the door. Then there was another sound on the other side of the door. A rattle, like someone was putting on a chain to keep the door from being able to open entirely. I inhaled. This would require usage of my best and most developed skills of persuasion.
The door squeaked and opened slightly. A set of eyes appeared under the chain. Underneath them a pit-bull showed its face. It was white with red eyes. I stepped backwards. The dog was held back. It snarled and barked. Someone hushed it and told it to go back.
"Mr. Lundgreen?" I said.
"What do you want?" The voice was hoarse and hostile.
"I'm Rebekka Franck. I work for Zeeland Times."
"I know who you are," he said. "I asked you what you wanted not who you were."
"Okay. I am here to talk to you. Off the record if you prefer. I just need to know a little about your book. I want to know about the lobotomies."
There was a long silence. It felt really uncomfortable.
"Are you alone?" He asked.
"Yes."
"No photographer?"
"No. So far it’s only research."
"What's your angle?"
"I don't know yet. I was hoping you could tell me," I said.
The eyes stared at me in disbelief. Then he closed the door. For a second I thought I had lost him, but I heard a rattle once again and now the door was opened entirely.
"Come on in."
Chapter 25
The small room in the basement was a dump. It was dark and dim. Only two dirty small windows under the ceiling brought in the daylight. It smelled terrible. Dirty glasses and plates with days of leftovers stuck to it in the sink. Old empty beer bottles on the coffee table told me that Mogens Holst probably wasn't sober. His hands were shaking as he removed some newspapers from a brown chair and told me to sit. A plant in a pot on the table had died a long time ago and had crumbled up and turned black and white.
Mogens Holst took a cigarette from a package and lit it. I considered asking if I could have one but resisted the temptation. I had quit and didn't want to start again now. Mogens Holst inhaled desperately on the cigarette. His hands were shaking as he moved it to the full ashtray in the middle of the table.
"You're sure no one knows you came here?" he asked. His voice trembled slightly. He looked at the front door nervously, then at the window behind him. I couldn't quite figure him out, if he was a lunatic. The pit-bull sat in the corner growling and staring at me.
"Pretty sure. Why?"
"No reason." He shook his head. "So what do you want to know?"
"You wrote a book about the usage of lobotomies here in Denmark stating that you had documentation that said it was used all the way into the Nineties. What kind of documentation did you have?"
Mogens Holst sniffed and killed his cigarette in the ashtray.
"Could I see it?" I asked.
He looked at me with skepticism. It made me feel uncomfortable. Maybe Irene Hoeg had been right. Maybe he was a nutcase. But if he had the documentation then I wanted to see it. I felt there was a story there for me to tell.
"Why? What do you want to do with it?" he asked. "You know I have withdrawn the book, right? You do realize that I had to take it all back afterwards? No one believes in a word I said back then."
I know. That's something I wanted to talk to you about as well. Why did you withdraw everything?"
Mogens Holst sighed. "I had to. The bastards forced me."
"Who did?"
He exhaled deeply. He picked up the pack of cigarettes and took out another one. The room was getting heavy with smoke as he lit the next one.
"They ruined my name," he said. "Cost me everything. My work, my family."
"Who? How?" I asked.
"I never found out exactly who was behind it. I do however have a pretty good picture of who it might have been. It happened over a short period of time. It started with my research funding being stopped suddenly. Then the university threw me out. Said my research wasn't valuable, told me I had been falsifying results. Later my publisher withdrew the book and told me to go public and apologize. Tell the world that I was wrong. Then my story was all over the media, the story about me being a drunk, a schizophrenic who was now self-medicating with alcohol. No one wanted to hear what I said anymore. Lost all my credibility, they said. The truth was drowned in a smear campaign about my personality."
"Why would they say all those things?" I asked.
He looked at me. Then he burst into laughter that led to a hoarse cough. "Because I am. They found my papers that stated I had been admitted several times to a mental institution when I was younger."
"So it wasn't a lie?"
Mogens Holst leaned over the table. He stared at me with narrow eyes. "No it’s true alright. But I never falsified those documents. Anyone who sees them will know they're true. I knew when I found them that this was explosive material. I just didn't realize how far into the system it reached."
"How far did it reach?"
"This is so big. It can overthrow the government. I didn't know it when I wrote the book, it wasn't until later that I realized that the current prime minister knows that these things have taken place and she has chosen to hide it. She was the minister of the department of health from 1990-1994. She was the one who approved it. Our current prime-minister, the leader of this country is responsible for this happening. If this is revealed she will be forced to resign."
I gasped. My heart was racing in my chest. This was an even bigger story than I had expected. "What did they approve? The usage of lobotomy?"
"They lobotomized kids all the way into the nineties. The last I have found record of was conducted in 1993."
"Wow. But they say that the use of lobotomy ended in the late Seventies?" I said.
"That's the story they are sticking to, yes. But it didn't. There was a place here close to Karrebaeksminde - Lundegaarden - where they sent criminal children and teenagers that they had no idea what to do with. They used them as lab rats, as experiments. The doctors there had a theory.
They believed that the criminals were born with a defect in the brain that they could somehow fix. That was why they deviated, that was why they displayed such cruelty and indifference to other people. You have to remember that these kids were bad news; they were killers and rapists at a very young age. They were somebody no one wanted in society, someone they would have placed on a deserted island if possible. But they were too young to go to prison. So the doctors had a theory that they could somehow fix what was wrong with them. They just needed to find the right “wires” to cut, so to speak. They thought they could somehow “cut the evil out of them.” That was how it was presented to the minister of health back then. They were certain they had detected where the defect was in the brain that caused these kids to be evil. They thought they had found a way they could help these young people to get a normal life, a way to cure them so to speak."
"By lobotomizing them?" I asked startled.
Mogens Holst nodded. "They said that they had found a new method. That back in the days when they had done it on psychiatric patients they cut the wrong nerve paths. That was why it went wrong. But these doctors were certain they could do this right and make Denmark known all over the world for this research. Imagine being able to cure criminal teenagers? Imagine how much money the government would save on juvenile prisons and personnel by removing this burden, by pacifying these criminals who didn't contribute anything to our society and make them no longer a threat to ordinary decent people?"
"But what happened to them?" I asked still shocked at how this could have happened less than twenty years ago.
"They became apathetic of course. Some even died from brain damage. But it wasn't spoken about. No one ever missed them. In the system they weren't considered human. They were experiments. Their lives had no value."
I stared at Mogens Holst in shock. I couldn't believe him. I didn't want to believe him. I shook my head.
"This is horrible,” I said. "You have the documentation for all this?"
