Under a Black Sky (Part of the Daniel Trokics Series)

by Inger Wolf

  The parking lot in front of the Ramada was empty except for two abandoned cars, and for a moment, the only sound was the faint hum of heavy traffic behind the hotel. Possibly it was the middle of the day in Anchorage, though he couldn't tell; he'd lost all sense of time.

  "Detective Angie Johnson," she said. She stuck her hand out. "Everything okay at the hotel?"

  "Yes, it's fine," he said.

  "We've got a lot to do. I hope you got some sleep on the plane."

  He shrugged. "I'll be okay. I'm used to not enough sleep."

  "Good. You'll be riding with me. I'd take you around to see the sights and everything, but we've got to get going. First, you'll meet the sergeant at the station and you'll be briefed. I'm assuming they gave you the general picture back in Denmark of what's happened?"

  "They did. What about the girl? Marie Vad? Have you found her?"

  The detective shook her head and frowned. "No. It doesn't look promising. We're still looking, and we're going to keep looking. Apart from that, I was at the autopsy yesterday; it looks like it could be a sexually motivated killing. We just found out that Asger Vad's wife was raped."

  She looked him in the eye while jostling the keys in her hand. A chill ran through Trokic. "Mette Vad?"

  She nodded. The words hung in the air for a few moments. "You can read the autopsy report when we get to the station. Hop in. We'll be there in about fifteen minutes."

  He checked out her car, a matte black Ford about ten years old. It looked like there had been a sticker on its side. As if she was reading his mind, she said, "Yeah, everybody in Homicide drives their own cars. And this isn't one of the sharpest-looking ones."

  THE POLICE STATION, an attractive yellow and orange building, lay half-hidden on Elmore Road. Trokic was led through several hallways and quickly lost his sense of direction.

  "It's a little bit confusing the first time," Angie said. "But the architect who designed this also did Scotland Yard, so there's some sort of logic to it."

  Trokic couldn't spot it, not yet.

  In Homicide, a tall man in his fifties with thick, black hair and graying temples smiled warmly as he greeted them. He was wearing a neat gray suit with a blue tie. "Welcome to Anchorage. I'm Mark Smith, head of Homicide. Angie's been taking good care of you, I hope?"

  He raised a skeptical eyebrow at her.

  "Yes, very," Trokic said.

  "Good. She'll be leading this investigation. You're being thrown directly into the fire."

  "Thank you. The Danish police are grateful to be allowed to take part. Asger Vad was my boss's friend, and of course family and friends in Denmark are interested in this case."

  Smith spread out his arms. "You'll be on equal footing in this investigation. But you need to know how we operate here. I suppose it's not so different in Denmark, but we have to be on the safe side. I'll leave it to Angie."

  He was introduced quickly to the others in Homicide. They all seemed interested in meeting their foreign guest. Angie led him to her desk. "Sergeant Smith is a good man, you'll see."

  She briefed him on everything they knew up to that point, and what he could expect during the investigation. She hid how she felt about having a Danish colleague pushed on her. She was friendly, though also a bit distant. Her gestures were firm. Her desk was neat, papers lay in tidy piles. A small seal made of stone stood beside her computer monitor.

  "But we have a lot to do," she said. Her brief smile barely reached her eyes. "So, let's get down to business, we have something to look into right now. A minute ago, we got a call from a neighbor of Asger Vad's hunting pal, David Griffin. An old army man. He's a flight mechanic now out at the airport. According to the neighbor, Griffin was acting weird yesterday."

  "Is there a reason to think he might be involved?"

  "I have no idea. But we're going out there to have a few words with him. Meanwhile, let's find you a weapon. Follow me."

  Several hallways later, they reached the weapons armory. "What are you used to?" she said.

  "Heckler and Koch, nine millimeter."

  She stared at him as if he'd said he normally used a toy gun. She chewed a bit on her lip. "Nine millimeter. I see. Hmm. Okay, well, we don't have that kind of weapon here."

  She turned to a large black woman in uniform. "We'll need a forty caliber Glock for our friend here."

  "That's the weapon most of us prefer,” she told Trokic. “I take it you know how to use it? Semi-automatic, fifteen rounds. It's a good weapon, solid and reliable."

  She handed it to him and he looked it over. The pistol was much more powerful than what the Danish police were equipped with, but he decided to drop that subject. "We have good shooting ranges in Denmark."

  "Great. Okay then, let's just…" She broke the pistol down and reassembled it. Then she repeated the procedure, showed him the safety system, and handed it to him. "There you go. Sign for it, and we'll get going."

  They got into Angie's car. She stuck her cap in the glove compartment. The dashboard was matte, like the outside of the car. He noticed a sticker of a whale, and he wondered if she had stuck it on.

  "We don't really know what kind of guy David Griffin is," she said, "but the little I do know about him isn't positive."

  "How do you mean?" Trokic asked.

  "A state trooper I know had problems with him about a year ago. I only remember because of the way he talked about him, he just really did not like the guy. He caught him driving around down on the Kenai Peninsula with a back seat filled with guns. Most likely he was going to hunt deer at night using lights, which is illegal, but my friend couldn't prove anything. He had a really bad feeling about the guy, felt like he'd been threatened, though not in so many words."

  "And now he's acting strange, the neighbor says?" Trokic asked.

  Angie swept her bangs to the side. "Yes. Luckily the neighbor is the curious type; he's been keeping an eye on him because he knew that Griffin knew Asger Vad. Griffin has two buildings on his property; he's been dragging guns from one to the other and acting nervous, according to the neighbor. He's also putting bars on some of the windows. Like he's planning on keeping someone inside. All in all, he's exhibiting very strange and suspicious behavior, you could say."

  "You think Asger Vad's daughter is maybe being held there?"

  "I'm not thinking anything yet. But we're keeping our eyes open."

  Angie pulled out of the parking lot and turned down Elmore Road. It had begun snowing, and her wipers were on high. She drove a bit too adventurously for his taste, but she must be used to driving in snow. He hoped. Just as he hoped everyone else on the road was because there was a lot of traffic. He watched her out of the corner of his eye. She seemed to be concentrating, her full lips were pressed together. There was a stubborn glint in her eyes, and he had the feeling she wouldn't take much shit. Which was good. He was sure she was competent."

  "He has a family," she said. "A wife and a teenage boy, about fifteen. It would be difficult to hide Marie on the property, but probably not impossible. Or the wife could be in on it. It wouldn't be the first sick couple in the world."

  "And how do we do this?" Trokic said. "If Marie is there, he might be aggressive."

  She nodded. "Exactly. We'll take it nice and easy. We want to make it look like we're just stopping by for a little chat about Asger. About their friendship, their past. If there's the least sign that something is wrong, we'll call for backup. My gut tells me very clearly this isn't a guy we want to handle alone."

  Chapter Eleven

  FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, they parked not far from David Griffin's house. Riding along on the broad highways was disorienting to Trokic, yet he sensed they were on the eastern outskirts of Anchorage. There was a lot of space between houses, with patches of forest. Most houses were set back from the street, wooden houses painted in a color of the rainbow, with an old pickup in the driveway. In one stretch, he noticed a chain of snow-capped, forested mountains above the rooftops. The Chugach Mountains, the tax
i driver had told him on the way in from the airport.

  "Let's have a little chat with the neighbor first," Angie suggested. She opened the glove compartment and grabbed her knitted cap. "The officer at the station who talked to him thought he wasn't playing with a full deck."

  Trokic stared straight ahead. "Full deck?"

  She smiled faintly at him. "Sorry, it's just that you speak English so well. The officer thought he was a little bit crazy. Maybe it's nothing more than the guy was yakking on the phone, just some idiot."

  They walked up to a small, yellow wooden house that looked a bit shabby. Snow swirled furiously around them. A trash bag on the steps was half covered with snow, and Trokic glimpsed a box of cornflakes and a few beer cans through the light blue plastic. A few pallets leaned against the wall and the air smelled of smoke from a wood stove.

  The man was already waiting in the doorway. A few windblown stray hairs looked like antenna on his nearly-bald head. Small puffs of snow blew over his royal-blue house slippers. Behind him, a small, black, overweight terrier danced around, staring suspiciously at them.

  "Well, well, looky here, Dusty." The man patted the dog's head. "If it ain't the police. A whole hour after I called them."

  He raised his head and looked back and forth at Angie and Trokic. "My crazy neighbor could have gutted half the town by now, hauled them out over all creation, or fed them to wild animals. And shot my house up with all that heavy artillery he has over there."

  "Hopefully, that hasn't happened," Angie said dryly. She brought out a pen and notepad.

  Trokic studied the little man, who now was wiping spittle off his mouth with his sleeve as he stared at them. He was in his fifties, and he wore a red vest over a scruffy gray shirt. His skin was thick and pale, and his enormous eyebrows looked like small, wild bushes.

  The man cleared his throat. "Well, since you're finally showing some interest in the welfare of us citizens, you might as well come on in. Might be you're not too late. I saw the nutcase a second ago, he's still over there."

  He bowed sarcastically and made a sweeping gesture with his arm, as if he were inviting royalty in.

  "Thanks, but we won't be staying long," Angie said. She nodded over toward the neighbor's house. "We understand you've seen some suspicious behavior. Griffin has put up bars on his guesthouse and carried weapons over there, is that right?"

  The neighbor hawked. "Something's wrong with that man. You ought to see when he dresses out some of his kills; it's just a hell of a mess. Might not even be legal. Must draw in predators, too. The way he handles that knife…he looks like a pro. An old vet. Gulf war, I heard. Wouldn't be the first time one of them blew a gasket. I saw a documentary one time, where—"

  "We understand," Angie said. "But has he threatened you or your family in any way?"

  He smiled tautly, as if they weren't in their right minds. "Not straight out, but Dusty doesn't like him or his mutts. We're usually right about things like this. And he stands out there sometimes and shoots target practice on his property. I ain't so sure that's legal either. It would make my day if you locked him up and tossed the key."

  Angie nodded. She seemed to be a very patient woman. "All right then, we'll have a look," she said in a friendly tone of voice. But the man wasn't finished.

  "You there." He pointed at Trokic; his finger was crooked, his fingernail dirty. "You don't have much to say. Are you deaf and dumb, or have the women taken over the Anchorage police? The men low on the totem pole or what? Just like everywhere else."

  Trokic looked away and wisely kept his mouth shut. This whole scene seemed surrealistic to him. Standing here halfway around the globe in a totally different world, jet-lagged, listening to a man who could just as well have been from Denmark. There were nosy people everywhere.

  "Okay, thank you for your help," Angie said. "Stay indoors until you see we've gone."

  They turned to leave. "You better believe I will," the man nearly shouted. "You maybe going to shoot him?"

  "We should probably see if he's done anything first," Angie said.

  Chapter Twelve

  THE LARGER OF the two old buildings on David Griffin's property was a red wooden house with white windows and a big front porch; behind that lay a small green building. The neighbor seemed to be right about the iron bars on the windows, which made it look like a miniature prison. That alarmed Trokic. What if they'd just stepped onto a lunatic's property? He'd just arrived in Alaska, his head was still a bit foggy, and he'd hardly had time to get acquainted with his new weapon. They were alone, and who knew how long it would take for backup to arrive. Angie looked unaffected by it all. She glanced skeptically at a pile of twisted iron beside the hedge that separated the property from the neighbors. Snow crunched under their feet as they approached the house.

  "Let me do the talking," she said, as she knocked on the door.

  Several moments went by before the door swung open. A large man in his late forties with grayish-brown hair and a beard stared at them. His large nose looked like a potato, his skin was dotted with large pores and faint brown spots. One eye was off-center. He wore a blue flannel shirt, dark loose jeans, and green socks with a hole in one toe.

  "Police? What can I do for you?" He looked back and forth at them, just as his neighbor had done. His voice was gruff, but with a nervous undertone. Trokic was immediately on guard; maybe the crackpot next door wasn't so far off after all.

  "We're here to talk about Asger Vad," Angie said. She stomped some of the snow off her boots. "We're investigating the murder of him and his family, and we know you were good friends. Could we come in and talk to you for a minute?"

  David Griffin glanced over his shoulder, as if he were looking for something. He knitted his eyebrows and hesitated a moment, but finally, he opened the door wide. The floorboards creaked as they stepped into a narrow hallway. He led them into a large room with old furniture in shades of green and brown. A cloud of smoke hung over a pipe lying in the ashtray on the coffee table.

  "Do you have guns on your property?" Angie said. She glanced around.

  "Three guns, upstairs. I hunt a lot."

  "So we've heard."

  "Heard what?"

  Angie spoke in a neutral voice. "You've been fined a few times for illegal hunting."

  Griffin didn't offer them a seat. His small eyes looked bewildered. "It's really tragic, what happened," he mumbled, ignoring her comment about the fines. "You check the psychiatric hospitals? Some nut must have escaped. It's the only thing that makes sense."

  Angie crossed her arms. "We're investigating that."

  "So, what do you want to know?"

  "How long did you know Asger Vad?" Trokic asked. He pulled a notepad out of the inside pocket of his leather coat.

  Angie glanced over to remind him who was in charge, but he returned the look with a hint of defiance. Griffin didn't in any way seem as though he were about to break down. He shrugged and wiped his nose with his sleeve. "I've known him most of the time he's lived in Alaska. I met him when I was out hunting, he was having car trouble, I fixed it for him. I'm a flight mechanic, so cars are a piece of cake for me. We hunted a lot together. A few times a month in season. He liked to get away from all the eggheads at that university."

  "What do you hunt?" Angie said.

  "Mostly deer and moose. A wolf once in a while. He was a good shot, we had a lot of good times together. We went fishing once in a while. It's a crying shame he's gone, and I don't understand it. Asger was a good man. Easy to be around, a good father. He'll be missed."

  He turned his palms up. "I don't have a bad word to say about him. But when you find whoever did this, I'd personally like to shoot him."

  The man was saying all the right things, Trokic thought, but without any emotion. He gazed at the antlers on the wall. They could be from any number of animals, he had no idea which.

  "His daughter is missing, did you know?" Trokic turned back to Griffin, who narrowed his eyes.

 
"I saw that on TV. Truth is, I'm keeping a close eye on this. I didn't know his family very well, but I hope you find her. Alive."

  He swallowed hard, though he still stared at them.

  No one spoke. Trokic looked at Angie for some sign of how hard they should pressure him, but before he could go on, she said, "We understand you've been carrying guns between the houses on your property, and that you've put bars on the windows on that other house."

  She nodded her head toward the building outside the window. "That could indicate someone was being held against their will."

  Griffin stared at her, his Adam's apple rising and falling a few times. "What is it you're trying to say, honey? You think I kidnapped that girl? Now, why the hell would I do that?"

  Her black eyes were glued on him. "I'm not trying to say anything. But I would appreciate you showing us around over there. And you can take that 'honey' business and shove it, I don't want to hear that again."

  He rolled his sleeves up, revealing two pale, gray-haired muscular arms. Stains spread out from his armpits, and Trokic smelled the bitter stink of old sweat through the odor of tobacco. "I don't suppose you have a search warrant?" he mumbled. "Do you?"

  "No, and we won't have to get one if you show us around." Angie flashed him a smile. "Those things take time. We figured you would want to cooperate, and we could clear up a few things and be on our way so we can catch the killer. That's the important thing, and if you have nothing to hide, it should be no problem for you."

  Pause. Suddenly the room felt all too small. Trokic was nervous; the man in front of him was very strong, no doubt he could fight like a bear. But suddenly he smiled, revealing his yellow teeth. "Well, sure. I was just thinking…well, it's not pretty over there. I don't normally like to show it to strangers. But I'll get the key."