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

by Inger Wolf

  Angie fought to hide her surprise. She thought about what Ingrid had said the day before. That Mette wanted a divorce. It made sense, even though Angie couldn't understand what she had seen in a crude man like Ted Harrison. An idea came to her.

  "I see. But then she decided not to leave him anyway, maybe Asger convinced her to stay, and you flew into a rage, or what? You went to their house to convince her to come with you, and when she refused you raped her in front of her husband and killed them all. Is that how it happened?"

  He slumped in his chair and stared at the bare wall. Was he thinking about how the noose was tightening around his neck? Suddenly, his eyes went blank.

  "What is this crap?" he finally said. "I just told you why my DNA is under her fingernails. Poor Mette."

  "Do you realize what you've done? You've handed me your motive. Your DNA was under Mette Vad's fingernails, and you bought a dollhouse. That's enough for us."

  He looked down at his feet. "It's horrible that she was raped. But it wasn't the killer she scratched. It was me, earlier that day."

  "I don't believe you," Angie said, her eyebrow raised.

  "I want a lawyer."

  "Where's Marie, goddammit?" She was almost screaming from frustration.

  TWO OFFICERS TOOK him away and she walked out, her head empty.

  "That went well," Smith said. "We'll get a confession out of him. Now it's just a matter of getting him to spit out what he's done with Marie."

  "I think there's more to it," Trokic said.

  "What do you mean?" Smith said. "He's got guilty written all over him. The dollhouse, the DNA—it's all lined up."

  "Yes, but what I mean is, he seems too normal, too ordinary of a guy to think up such a complicated and sick plan. Maybe he has an accomplice."

  "Possibly. But for the time being, he's the man with the motive, as Angie pointed out. There's no time to spare to get a confession. Let him stew in his own juices a while until his lawyer shows up. Then we'll really put the screws to him."

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  THEY PARKED in front of Ted Harrison's house. Yellow brick, flat black roof. The lawn was neat, and his blue van was parked in the driveway. It was one of the nicer places Trokic had seen. Ordinary and boring. But nice.

  "Strange that a carpenter has a brick house," he said, as Angie locked the car. "You'd think he would have built it out of wood."

  "Maybe he sees enough wood every day." She straightened up. "There aren't really very many brick houses in Alaska. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the climate."

  He hadn't seen her brown stocking cap before; it looked great pulled down over her ears with a long matching scarf over her black coat.

  They ran into Ian Brown at the front door. "So, we meet again," he said. "We're done if you want to have a look."

  "We do," Trokic said.

  "Not that there's much of interest. Unfortunately, we haven't found anything that connects him to the murders. We thought we'd find some sign of blood. The crime scenes are like slaughterhouses, and it's impossible not to get blood on you. So, we gathered up all his clothes and checked more or less the whole house with luminol, in case he brought Marie here and did something to her."

  "Nothing at all?" Angie said. "That can't be right."

  "We did find signs of blood in the bathroom sink, but nothing that's going to nail the guy. He could have cut himself shaving. As far as the kitchen goes, he's cleaned with chlorine, so that's no good. We're going back to the lab and look at some samples. Hopefully, we'll find something."

  "What about the computers?" Trokic said.

  "We have one from his office. Who knows, maybe there's email correspondence between him and Mette Vad, maybe that could shed some light on things. Maybe she broke up with him at the last moment."

  "Okay," Angie said. "Sounds good. We'll just have a peek at the place."

  The small team of forensic technicians was packing up. It was surprisingly nice inside. Good quality furniture of brown leather, large, colorful, original abstract paintings on the walls. Trokic nodded at the high-tech electric stuff, the stereo, the lamps, the TV—nice stuff. Maybe Mette had been taken in after all. She'd just chosen the wrong kind of guy.

  They walked around the two-story house. Kitchen, living room, three bedrooms. Pretty big for a bachelor. Everything nice and neat, with the exception of the bed, which was understandable; Ted Harrison had literally been dragged out of it that morning.

  "This doesn't seem right somehow," Angie said. "Not what I expected."

  Trokic scratched his head. "I know what you mean, it looks…normal. Like I said before. A little bit boring, maybe, but not like a mass murderer's home. I thought there would be some sign of his mental state. A big mess, a bunch of strange things. On the other hand, I've never been in the home of an insane killer. And the question remains of why he wanted Marie."

  "Maybe she just got in the way, made things difficult," Angie suggested. "So he took her someplace and killed her."

  "Hmm. The strangest thing is that Mette was involved with this man. From what we've heard, she seemed sensible. She must have been a bad judge of character, what do you think?"

  "Possibly. Or maybe she needed someone desperately because Asger was so preoccupied with volcanoes. It's clear to me now that Asger was an ambitious career man, and I can't imagine he had much time for his family. And he didn't seem very open or emotional. Harrison is good-looking and can be charming; I noticed that the first time we had him in, so maybe she was vulnerable and felt unloved. And he moved in on her."

  "You might be right."

  "And he's our best bet right now," Angie said. "Dollhouse missing, DNA. That can't be ignored. But let's keep our options open as far as motive goes. He might've been enraged if Mette decided to stick with Asger. Or maybe she was just a pawn in some game; maybe he had an accomplice. He might break if we pressure him."

  Trokic looked up and down the white wall in front of them, as if it held an answer. Finally, he said, "Let's take a look at his workshop. I know the techs didn't find anything there, but still."

  They walked outside and followed a path cleared of snow halfway around the house. They entered a very messy workshop, with tools and wood scattered all around the floor. Several boxes of nails lay spread out on a small table. Drawings of kitchens and bathrooms hung on a bulletin board. A half empty bottle of gin and an ashtray lay on the floor.

  Angie clucked her tongue. "Not quite so neat everywhere. Looks like a den of iniquity in here. You have to wonder if he had it together enough to do his work, or if he even actually built anything."

  "Maybe the house was neat and everything because he was expecting Mette," Trokic said.

  Angie laughed and looked at him curiously. "So that's maybe something you would do?"

  "Maybe."

  "Charming."

  He shrugged. "It probably doesn't mean all that much. He's just a slob when he works, that's not something we can use against him."

  His foot nudged a small mound of wood on the floor. It toppled.

  "You're right," she said.

  She looked at the small pieces of wood on the cement floor. Most of it was pine, but in the middle, there were chunks of a darker wood, varnished on one side. She frowned and picked one of the pieces up. They looked at each other. His thoughts began racing.

  Slowly she said, "This looks suspiciously like it could be from the dollhouse. What do you think? Looks like oak to me."

  She handed it to him, and he studied it. Then he knelt down and rummaged around in the wood now scattered on the floor. There were a few more pieces, some that could be from the roof.

  She looked at him seriously. "What if he's telling the truth, what if he smashed the dollhouse up out here, but didn't get rid of all the wood? That would mean he didn't put the dollhouse on the Vads’ table because he didn't have it."

  "If that's true," Trokic said, "we just lost a suspect."

  AN HOUR LATER, they parked and sat silently in front of th
e Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory on Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue. Finally, she sighed and leaned her head against the car window. "Those are some first-class assholes in there. They always manage to ruin your theories. Everything was looking up; we had Harrison nailed."

  "Okay. So, Harrison got rid of the dollhouse, just like he said, and therefore he couldn't have put it at the crime scene."

  She nodded. "And that means there's only one dollhouse it can be. Debbie's. She must have sold it or given it away. Who knows, maybe it ended up with Adam Connolly somehow."

  "We have to find her," Trokic said. "See if she can confirm she sold it.”

  "But how?"

  "I don't know. We've been trying. Maybe Thereza Mendell or Harrison can come up with more details. The dollhouse is the key to everything."

  They sat for a while, watching the traffic. He was getting used to it. The sound of the V-6 engines, the sight of large cars had become a part of his everyday life. How fast could you get used to a place like this? Swap the small, narrow streets in the center of Århus with the big wide streets of this flat town. Get used to the open Americans who talk to you on the street, unlike Danes, the social customs of the past fifty years in Denmark. Could a person do that?

  The windows were fogging up. Angie started the car and turned on the heater, rubbed her fingers on her pants. "What about that dog?"

  "Dog?"

  "Harrison said that Debbie had a poodle when he met her in Talkeetna."

  "So, what about it?"

  "He said it was a really ugly one that looked like a show dog."

  "Don't all of them look like that?"

  She smiled. "Yeah, but it must mean the dog had a haircut. They give poodles haircuts, don't they?"

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  MARIE WOKE up to sunlight pouring in through the small hole. For a second, it blinded her, and she couldn't remember where she was. Then she let out a sigh of relief. The animals hadn't found her. Charlie hadn't found her. She had been awake only a short time during the night, after having dreamt about a wolf with bared teeth, breaking into the school during math and killing all the other students while she hid under a desk. She'd been shaking with cold, but her exhaustion had quickly taken over.

  She was still alive.

  Her heart hammered as she remembered running away the day before. She had pulled it off; she was free. A sharp odor burned her nostrils. A bear had walked by during the night, she guessed. If only they would hibernate. It had to be that time. She pulled a limb aside and noticed the snow had been trampled not far away. Judging from the tracks, it had to be a small bear, and it probably wouldn't have given her any trouble. Her thighs were ice cold, almost numb, and she wondered if she had frostbite, if it was dangerous. The rest of her body was warm, though. Her hunger had also disappeared.

  She pushed the roots aside, looked around, and crawled out. The sun was shining through the limbs, and for a moment she felt desperately afraid of all the light. Light that made her visible and vulnerable.

  Then she remembered the star she'd seen the night before. North. That's the direction she should go.

  She glanced around; the forest was quiet. There was no sign of Charlie or anyone else. Maybe he had given up, maybe he really had, and she could walk all the way home. She ate some snow, thinking there would be nothing else to eat, and though she wasn't hungry, she felt weak. How long could she live out here? If the mountains she saw in the clearing weren't the Chugachs, what were they? It was like there was too much snow on them. Kenai? Had he driven so far south? She'd only been south of Anchorage to the lower tip of Alaska once, to see some whales. But she'd been so young that she hadn't had any idea which way it was.

  She tried to remember what her mom told her. Get to a safe place, get warm, get something to drink, something to eat. In about that order. What was there to eat out here, anyway? She had no idea, and everything was covered with snow.

  She looked straight ahead. There was snow, marshy land, and trees, as far as the eye could see. But it was away from the cabin, and that was the most important thing. Seek safety. Maybe if she walked long enough, she would get to a road, and maybe a car would find her. Maybe.

  SHE WALKED through forest and across meadows for about four hours. It was tough going, she sank to her knees in snow with every step. Every ten minutes she had to take a break, and she knew there was a limit to how far she could make it. She had seen moose and several ravens, but luckily no bears. Once in a while, she had the feeling they were there, hiding from her. And then there were all the lakes, some more like watering holes, others much bigger. Several times, the snow had crackled like broken ice, and she was afraid she was walking on a snow-covered lake and would fall into the icy water. Get caught under the ice. How quickly would a person die?

  The farther she walked, the better she felt. The images from the cabin, the grotesque big flies with black, hairy legs he had painted, his smell, his shrieky voice—all of it was receding now. She started to look for places she could hide for the night, shelter from the cold and animals, but so far nothing as good as the night before had shown up. Meanwhile, she kept walking, mumbling in her secret language, dreaming about Christmas and all the sweets and marzipan goodies she and her mom would make. Maybe they would visit her grandparents in Denmark again, like they did last year. Her dad was happy to pay the tickets so they could come to Alaska, but the trip exhausted her grandmother. Christmas would come, though, and she and Oliver would look at all the decorations. She wanted an iPod.

  Then she noticed it. Something that looked like a road farther ahead. A real road. She thought she glimpsed asphalt under a splotchy blanket of snow. It had been cleared. So there were people here after all. There were no signs, no cars in sight. But the road had to lead somewhere. To some houses, or a town. She walked faster, and a small hope began to grow. She might really get away.

  Moments later, she was standing at the road, and she turned to the right. Then she stopped, startled. Suddenly, she couldn't breathe. The road stretched out mile after mile, far out to the horizon, as if the landscape opened up to a great mountain. She recognized it immediately; in fact, she had a painting of it in her room. No other mountain in the whole world was more familiar to her. Or maybe she should call it a volcano.

  She stood motionless, captured by its beauty, as her breath surrounded her. Then her brain kicked in, and she began reasoning out how it was possible that she was so close to the volcano. She had never been closer. Not even outside Anchorage could she see the volcano so clearly. And not even from the Volcano Observatory's roof, where she'd been with her dad.

  She was so absorbed in thought that she didn't hear the vehicle slowly driving up the road and stopping behind her. The sudden crackle of tires on snow startled her, and she strangled a scream. She went limp and just kept staring at the volcano.

  Calmly, he said, "I've been looking all over for you, kiddo."

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  THEY STOOD in front of the dog salon. Trokic stared at Angie's thick eyelashes that formed a small fan over her eyes. She moistened her chapped lips at regular intervals. Her neck was flushed from their night together, his beard stubble. He tried to recall seeing something that beautiful.

  They had only spoken briefly on the way. It was as if the future already stood between them. Was it possible to import an American policewoman to Denmark? Hardly. She would suffocate from lack of space. He wanted to know everything about her, but there wasn't time. They were constantly being pulled from one place to the next.

  "This is supposed to be the place," Angie said. "I don't get it. Are those dogs really going to get a haircut? It just doesn't sound natural to me. My grandparents' sled dogs, now those are real dogs."

  "I don't know," Trokic said. He often had to comb out the tail of his cat, Pjuske, when it got tangled up in the neighbor's thick hedge. He hadn't thought about the cat for several days. Suddenly, his world seemed far away.

  An enormous poodle lay in front o
f the door. Maybe it was some sort of advertisement, Trokic thought. Its white fur had been cut very short except for an area around its neck and its paws, which had been sprayed pink to match the sign on the wall. There wasn't a single curl out of place, and its tongue hung out of its mouth despite the cold. At least it looked happy.

  "For chrissake," she said, looking at the dog with a raised eyebrow. "Who wants an animal to look like that? It's like some alien, the poor thing. I didn't even know anyone in town had that kind of dog. They must keep them inside because I never see them. Maybe they're not supposed to be out in the cold."

  She snorted. "Anyway, what the hell, let's see what she has to say."

  The owner stood in a room with a small black dog the size of a terrier under a dryer. The dog shook and looked at them mournfully, though they couldn't tell if the dog was scared or just cold after its bath. An assortment of small dog clothes in all shapes and sizes hung from a rod on the wall. What looked like a blanket of woven gold yarn with frills on top stuck out. A name was printed on it: "Golden Star."

  The stylist had short brown hair in a page, with a pink uniform that matched the logo and dog outside. She looked grumpy; the corners of her mouth hung as if it was something chronic, or else it was simply from being in a bad mood for forty years. If Trokic had owned a dog, he wouldn't have wanted to hand it over to her. There was something weird about this place. But they had called five different salons, and hers was the only one who had a Debbie in their computer records.

  "Aha, so it's the police," she said. She shut the dryer off. The nervous little dog looked around, but it was tied to a hook on the table. "Let's do this out back."

  They sat at a round white table in a small claustrophobic room. The stylist pushed a box of dog brushes away. The room smelled of toilet bowl cleaner and smoke. Angie looked almost nauseous, but she overcame it. "As we said, we're here to find out what you remember about the Debbie in your records, the one with long blonde hair."