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

by Inger Wolf

  He didn't look entirely convinced.

  "Tell me something different," she said. "Something about where you come from. Like the Vikings. They were a cruel bunch, weren't they? Murdering, raping, plundering everywhere they went, is what I've heard about them. You're probably not quite on their level, are you?" She held two fingers above her forehead, simulating horns. She rocked back and forth a bit.

  That brought out one of his rare smiles, along with a short laugh. "They do have a bad rep, I know that."

  "So, tell."

  He pushed his plate to the side and told her about his country and his city. About a flat kingdom with a history that went back several thousand years. Endless fields of wheat and rapeseed, the smell of beech forest in May, festivals, pork roast, and several other things. Mostly a peaceful place. It sounded very interesting. Fun and easy-going. But it didn't sound as if there were any animals.

  "Do you have ravens?" she finally asked.

  He laughed again. "Yes, we have ravens."

  "That's good, Daniel," she said thoughtfully.

  ANGIE HAD COMPLETELY FORGOTTEN the case for a while, but then her phone rang. She listened. Trokic's eyes locked onto hers, a questioning look. He drank the rest of his coffee.

  Adrenaline rushed through her and she immediately lost her appetite. She stuck her phone back in her pocket and stood up. "Shit. We have to go, get your coat on, Viking."

  He was surprised, but he stood up. "What's going on?"

  She tossed a few bills on the table, hoping it was enough. "That was Smith. Griffin's nosy neighbor saw him drag a black sack from his car over to the guesthouse. Then he heard a loud scream and he went outside. He couldn't see much, but he saw the curtains shaking, like there was a fight going on inside. So, he called the station."

  Trokic frowned. "Can we trust him, though?"

  "I don't know. Maybe the idiot is just seeing things, but we can't take that chance."

  They both rushed to put their coats on.

  "But could he see what was going on?" Trokic asked.

  "I'm not sure from what Smith said; it sounded confusing. Not good at all." She swallowed hard. "I don't know whether to hope Marie is there or not."

  They ran to the car and she held out her hand and wriggled her fingers. "Keys, please. Sorry, but it's my turn to drive, we need to get there before next week."

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  ADRENALINE FOCUSED Trokic's thoughts and he felt better. It was a familiar feeling, though in a totally foreign environment. Angie hit the siren, and the car flew over the asphalt. Anchorage streaked by outside the window. Restaurants spread out along the street, parking lots, a Walmart with a few homeless persons along the wall, a mother in high heels dragging her kids along in front of McDonald's. Several times, his heart leaped into his throat when running a red, when nearly scraping a university shuttle bus while passing, and when she lost control momentarily on the slushy street. He thought about the weapon he'd been given. Could he use it well enough? He had broken it down and reassembled it several times at the hotel, but he hadn't had one single chance to shoot it. This was serious. Marie Vad could be in danger. Or even worse: dead.

  As if she was reading his mind, Angie frowned and looked him up and down for a moment. "Are you okay?"

  He waited to answer a second too long. Her asking him this was ironic, given her condition. "I think so. What's going to happen?"

  "A SWAT team is meeting us close to the house, they have special weapons, and then we'll go right in. He might be armed, and it looks like there's been a fight, so we have to coordinate everything right when we get there."

  A FEW MINUTES LATER, Angie braked hard several houses from the Griffin’s; the black Ford slid before ramming into the curb. Trokic took a deep breath.

  They got out. She looked him over again, as if she were seeing him for the first time. Gauging him. Then she opened the trunk and pulled out two bulletproof vests and handed him one. "Get rid of the leather coat, it's too heavy. Put this on."

  The woman he had just met in the café had vanished, leaving behind someone with a stern, determined look on her face. "I hope you've done this before," she said tersely.

  THEY ARRIVED at the same time as an inconspicuous white van. Five men in black bulletproof vests, helmets, and sunglasses, all carrying machine guns, jumped out of the vehicle. Angie stepped in front of them. Her voice was focused and commanding as she went through the plan, the placement of the SWAT team, and their individual roles. They all stared at her. No one asked questions.

  "The most important thing is to make sure Marie Vad is unharmed, if she's in there. We go in first, and you cover us. You know the routine. She's what's important, but try to take him alive. If he did kill the Vad family, we want to know the whole story. He could be part of something bigger."

  They nodded in unison.

  "Okay, let's go," Angie said.

  Trokic pulled out his gun and followed her. It felt heavy in his hand. Foreign.

  "The snow will muffle the noise a bit," she whispered.

  Trokic thought the snow was, in fact, far too noisy, the way it crunched, and his heart was pounding too quickly. The guesthouse was covered in winter shadow, it looked silent and abandoned. Suddenly, everything was absolutely still. Ominous. The birch trees behind held out their swaying limbs bearing snow. Was Marie being held in there, and if so, where was David Griffin? His pickup was in the driveway, but the house was dark.

  Something didn't feel right to Trokic. They had been there before. If Griffin was holding Marie prisoner, why bring her somewhere Griffin must know they were keeping an eye on? Had he come back to get rid of the body? Bury it? Was it even possible to bury something now? The earth must be frozen hard. What was the plan? Some sort of switch with someone else, if there were more than one person involved?

  He followed Angie. Snow swirled around his feet as they snuck close to the guesthouse. He could almost feel the SWAT team's breath on his neck. Were they visible out there? Was Griffin sitting with his gun pointed at them, or at Marie? He hoped they could get her out alive. That they could end the hell she must be in.

  Now they were close to the house, and Angie's eyes were totally black. Her back hugged the wall, and he joined her as she knocked on the door with a gloved hand. The sound was hollow, booming, and it seemed to Trokic that it could be heard across the entire quiet neighborhood.

  "Police. Come out now, hands over your head."

  No answer. Complete silence. There was no way she hadn't been heard. Less than thirty seconds later, she knocked on the door again and repeated her order. No response. He watched small, white clouds of breath spewing rapidly out of her mouth. Her cheeks were red from the cold and the excitement.

  "We're going in," she said forcefully. "I've been in there, I know what it looks like. The living room and kitchen are straight inside, and there's a room on the right. I'll go straight in, you follow and take the room."

  "Got it," Trokic said. Suddenly, it made no difference that he was in Alaska and not Denmark. This was the same.

  She glanced at him one final time. She turned the doorknob. The door opened a crack. Quickly, she stuck her head in; the SWAT team behind Trokic readied themselves. Things could happen fast. What if Griffin was waiting for them with a machine gun? He could mow down the entire force in no time. Trokic tried to focus on Marie. Could she be inside, numb with fright? They hadn't heard one single sound.

  "It's open," Angie whispered. She pushed the door wide open. "Police!" she yelled, holding her pistol with both hands. "Come out, hands over your head."

  The silence was complete. Her eyes were wide open now.

  "He's not coming out voluntarily," she said, her voice low. "Let's go."

  For a moment, Trokic was even more worried about her than before. She seemed so vulnerable and yet, at the same time, tough. Was she really ready for this after the beating she'd taken? What if she couldn't aim well? A shot just a bit wide of the mark could be fatal. She push
ed herself up against the wall to the right and yelled, "Police," one more time. Still no sound.

  Trokic followed behind her and looked inside the entrance. Heavy curtains darkened the room; he could barely make out shapes. Then he recognized it: the smell of death. Heavy and new and nauseous in the room. He swallowed and flashed on the child's corpse they were about to see. Another victim of an insane killer. And where was Griffin? There was a light switch behind him. Quickly, he weighed what to do, then he reached back and found the switch, and turned on the light. The small room in the guesthouse lit up like a stage, and for a second, he was blinded. No one spoke a word as they tried to come to grips with the horror in front of them. Angie turned to him in disbelief.

  "Shit. Looks like we're too late."

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  THEY ALL SAT TOGETHER. The light from the bare bulb above the table illuminated the room, and Trokic felt the cold pressing in from all sides. The odor sneaking inside him. For a moment, it felt as if a black hole had swallowed them in spite of the light. He'd never seen anything so bizarre, and he tried to take in all the details. How long ago had it happened? Minutes?

  David Griffin looked as if he had taken an unsuccessful afternoon nap at the round table in the middle of the room. He was leaning back in the wooden chair, his arms hanging at his sides. His face was ashen. Nails dirty and unclipped. Eyes half shut, mouth open enough to expose his bad teeth. His flannel shirt was unbuttoned at the top, and salt-and-pepper chest hair stuck out. His army-green pants were wet from urine. What had once been a fearless hunter had been reduced to a pile of human waste. A man who had died in terror.

  Beside him sat a woman in her forties; Trokic guessed she was his wife. Her longish, stringy, messy bleached hair framed her narrow face, and her nose protruded from fleshy cheeks. She wore a pink fleece jacket, and her hands rested on a red-checkered tablecloth, her eyes staring emptily at the ceiling. She reminded Trokic of one of the women in Twin Peaks, though he couldn't remember her name.

  He looked at the last person at the table and swallowed hard.

  A boy around fourteen slumped over the table. His dark hair was clotted with blood, his face turned to the side. Open eyes, contorted mouth. Trokic froze momentarily and recalled the teenage boy he had killed years ago. About the same age.

  He glanced at the heavy object in the middle of the table. A wooden dollhouse. Different from the one they had seen before. It dominated the table, in an intrusive, vulgar way. He had the feeling that when they leaned over and looked in, they would see three dolls. But he didn't want to look, not yet.

  "What the fuck?" Angie mumbled, searching his face as if it held an answer. "What the fuck is this?"

  Trokic wiped a few drops of sweat from his forehead. "It's so…I don't know, not what we expected," he said, unable to hide how startled and shocked he was.

  "I don't understand," Angie said. "Why did he bar the windows? Bring his guns in here?"

  Trokic checked the bedroom. A black bag lay on the bed—was that what the neighbor had seen Griffin drag over from the car? He pulled out the plastic gloves that Angie had given him and carefully lifted a corner: food, a lot of it. So that's what Griffin had brought in.

  "There's enough food here to last a long, long time," he said.

  "What the fuck is all this?" she said again, looking at him in bewilderment. "It's almost like he expected it to happen, tried to prepare for it…to protect his family? But why? How could he know?"

  He had no answers. Smith walked in, looked around the crime scene, and shook his head. "He knew he was next."

  "But how?" Angie asked again. "Did he squeal about something to someone? Know something about the murders, maybe?"

  No one answered. The SWAT team entered. One of them shook his head, another who had taken his helmet off gripped his forehead. A third man looked at them as if he didn't want to get involved. Smith turned to them with hands on hips, a determined expression on his face. "Our killer has just been here," he said, speaking loudly out over the room. "He can't have gotten far; check the neighborhood. And we want him alive. Let's go!"

  They dashed out over the snow like big, black ants. Smith spoke into the radio transmitter on his shoulder to the dispatcher, calling for assistance from all units.

  "And call the techs," Angie said. "It's a mess in here; they might as well bring the entire unit. Again."

  The cold had settled into the guesthouse, and Trokic had trouble breathing. It felt surrealistic. They had come to rescue Marie from a man they thought was a mass murderer. For a moment, he had hoped this case was at an end, that they could save her. And he could return to Denmark with another new experience under his belt.

  Instead, they were facing something even bigger. And much worse. Someone out there, a predator, a monster, had slaughtered three people in cold blood. Trokic looked at the family gathered there. There was no resemblance whatsoever to the Vad family. Had there been any profiles of them, they wouldn't match. Why were these particular people victims? And Marie. Where did she fit in all this?

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  AFTER HANDING the crime scene over to the six techs and ignoring the crazy neighbor, who had yelled at them ("What did I tell you, what did I tell you, he asked for it!"), they drove off.

  Neither of them spoke for the first several miles. They waited for the dispatcher to announce that the killer had been apprehended. But the good news didn't come. Thoughts raced through Trokic's head. He couldn't fight off the images of the Griffins' bloody deaths. Angie, on the other hand, looked calm as she navigated the broad street. But she had seen it before. A different version, he reminded himself.

  "They brought Adam Connolly into the station," she said. "They picked him up at the university."

  "Could he have had time to kill Griffin and his family?"

  "Maybe, if he was fast enough and had an extra set of clothes. He said he's been sitting in his office all day, but none of the other teachers can confirm it. Several officers have been out to search his home and his room at the lodge. No Marie. Theoretically, he could've killed all of them."

  "Has he said anything?" Trokic said.

  "Nope. They had to let him go. Shit. But I'm not finished with him, I want him brought in again tomorrow."

  "What do we do now?"

  She thought a second before answering. "We wait. Let's go back to my place. I've had it."

  "Okay." He didn't want to sit alone in his hotel room with his head filled with all this horror.

  And he didn't at all want to let her be by herself.

  THEY PARKED in front of her trailer. He followed her inside; half of the cold outside seemed to follow along.

  "I'll turn on the heat," she said. "I can't afford to warm the place when I'm out, and it doesn't take long before it's freezing in here."

  Odd; it felt unfamiliar there, and yet so homey. He was halfway across the world in an entirely different culture, dealing with several murders, and her home was peculiar but also a cozy refuge. He couldn't decide how he felt about that.

  She put on some music; a blue pop ballad murmured from a small speaker on a shelf over the kitchen table. There was pain and somberness in the singer's airy voice, a far cry from the hard rock he usually listened to. But then she shut it off.

  "I can't stand to listen to music right now," she said. She sounded tired.

  He sat down by the coffee table in her small living room, and shortly after she sat across from him. Minutes passed; he eyed her delicate face.

  "What the hell is going on?" she finally mumbled. "Two families killed. I was so sure we'd find Marie, that this nightmare of a case was over. I was so sure."

  "And, instead, we've got something worse on our hands," he said.

  "I need a drink, bad." She stood up. "I can't wait to interrogate Adam Connolly tomorrow."

  She glanced in a mirror and brushed her fingers across the wound on her cheek. The swelling had lessened, and it seemed to be healing. For a moment, she looked
relieved. Then she rummaged around in the cupboards. "Red wine or whiskey? And don't say you want a beer. I don't have any."

  "Wine, thanks."

  "We have to eat. I'll call out for something. Is Chinese okay? You're not getting moose."

  She didn't have the energy to smile, and he didn't have the energy to look disappointed.

  "SO, David Griffin wasn't our man after all," she said after the food arrived. "The question is, what do the two families have in common? Or what does Adam Connolly have to do with them, if he's our man? He might have known something."

  "And if it's not him," Trokic said, spooning some deep-fried shrimp onto his plate, "the families must have been the targets, not the individuals, do you think?"

  Angie downed half the glass of wine in one gulp. Underneath her tough exterior, she was upset, he could tell.

  "When we were only talking about the Vad family," she said, "it might have been that the killer was only after Asger. That he wanted to punish him by raping his wife, and the dollhouse thing was just some sick joke. Or maybe he was after the daughter, and the family got in the way, and he tried to lead us astray by doing the whole family."

  "But now everything looks different," Trokic said. He peered out the window at the pitch-black night. "Two families, two dollhouses. So, the question is, how did the killer know them? Connolly is definitely the top candidate."

  He spooned up a large portion of rice followed by some soy-sauce-infested vegetables. Her leg touched his, but she didn't move it away. He felt a faint warmth from the leg, and his pulse quickened a notch. She looked him in the eye. A long look. Searching look. Then she lowered her eyes. "On the other hand, we can't rule out that it could be someone else. It doesn't have to be a person who knows them well. Maybe it's just someone who has been in both their homes."

  "A carpenter who bought a dollhouse?" Trokic suggested. He got his heartbeat under control.