“I’ve tried to tell her that there was nothing she could have done, that sometimes people are beyond help. I tell her that she is not responsible for Luna’s death, but she doesn’t see it that way.”
“It’s still recent, and raw.”
“Yes, of course, you are right. Time heals, doesn’t it?”
Flynn shrugged. In his experience, time dulled but didn’t always heal.
“I don’t want you to waste your time,” said Thorsen.
“It’s no problem.”
“Maybe if she hears it from you rather than me she will accept it.”
“Accept what?”
“That her sister was unwell. That she took her own life and there was nothing Begitte could have done.”
Flynn said nothing.
Thorsen frowned at Flynn. “You don’t think there was anything she could have done? That we could have done?”
“Honestly? I don’t know. But I don’t think so.”
“I don’t think so either,” Thorsen.
“She wants closure. Maybe I can help with that. I don’t know. But I told her I’m willing to try.”
“Where will you start?”
“I’ll start where Luna died.”
Chapter Fifteen
The evening brought another meal in the communal dining room. A family that Flynn had not met prepared pasta with garlic bread. He had not eaten all day, and he went back for thirds. The mood was lighter than it had been since he and Gorski had arrived, and the wine that was served brought smiles to faces Flynn hadn’t seen them on previously. He enjoyed some homemade ginger ale and ate until he was full twice over.
The children played soccer in the long twilight, and some of the adults shared a cigarette or two in the allotment. Gorski was drinking beer with his new friend, Markus. Flynn sat in the corner and watched the scene. It was like Thanksgiving, three times a week. An extended family, there for one another, no secrets. Except sometimes they couldn’t be there, and there were always secrets.
Mrs. Jensen approached him and gave him her regal nod.
“Do you mind if I sit?” she asked.
“Not at all,” he said.
She pulled a chair out with a screech and sat beside him, looking at the activity before them.
“Do you have a big family, Mr. Flynn?”
“No, ma’am. My parents and brother died when I was in high school.”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“It’s okay. It is what it is.”
“Is that why you joined the military?”
“More or less. My father was a Marine, so I was always in the military life. The French Foreign Legion gave me something familiar, the structure that I didn’t even know I needed, and offered me something new as well.”
“Which was?”
“A chance to be me.”
She nodded. “I saw you in the fields today. Looking at the Fisker house.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t think it was an accident, do you?”
“I have some doubts.”
Mrs. Jensen breathed deeply, her chest rising and falling like a bird’s. “You were asking about Luna this morning. I’ve been thinking about her.”
“You have?”
“Ja. About her troubles.”
“Why did she have troubles? Do you recall something happening to her? Did your daughter ever say anything?”
“No, nothing like that. I think it was just who she was. She had been a happy girl, yes, but after the change she became, well, unhappy. Withdrawn.”
“The change?”
“Puberty, Mr. Flynn.”
Flynn nodded and looked at the kitchen as a group of residents laughed at something someone had said.
“But not Freja?”
“I think all teenage girls go through a phase, Mr. Flynn. They test boundaries and rebel against things. But no, I think Freja was worried about Luna back then. She tried to cheer her up. But once Freja left for university, well, I think they lost touch the way people sometimes do.”
“Did Luna leave here after Freja?”
“No, before. She wasn’t even eighteen. It was against her parents’ wishes, but she went anyway.”
“It happens.”
“But she came back,” said Mrs. Jensen. “That’s what I’ve been thinking about. She came back.”
“Meaning?”
“She was better, Mr. Flynn. Not cured, not fixed. I don’t know that one ever recovers from that sort of thing, but she was better. The smile returned to her face. And then, out of the blue, the old Luna returned. The sad Luna.”
“Because of the fire?”
“No, I think that’s why it has been on my mind. It was in the days before. And then after the fire, she just left.”
“Begitte said she left the next day.”
“Yes, that’s right. I spoke to her. I gave her some money. I suspected she would use it on drugs or something, but I couldn’t let her leave with nothing. And I recall asking her if she was all right. Of course, she said she was, although she clearly didn’t mean it. So I asked her what she was going to do, and she said the strangest thing. She said she was going to put a stop to it.”
“Put a stop to what?”
“She never said. I thought—perhaps it was vain hope—that she was going to stop the drugs and the drinking, although I now realize that she already had done that. Begitte didn’t allow her any such access once she was back here. But later, I decided she had meant ending her life.”
Mrs. Jensen looked across the room at her husband, who was listening to Markus tell a story. The expression left her face, and for a moment she was a blank slate.
“Why are you telling me this, Mrs. Jensen?”
“My daughter left for university and never came back.”
“I know.”
“Not once.”
“Your husband told me.”
“We do Christmas with her and her husband at their house. We meet in the city for birthdays and such. Never here. Not ever. My husband says it’s because they just prefer the urban life, that the countryside is boring. But when you came to ask us about Luna, it made me think. Think in a way I didn’t really want to. Think why Freja never comes back. Why Luna wouldn’t stay in her own family home.”
“Why is that? Did something happen?”
“No,” she said. “No, I don’t think so. I would know, as a mother. But it makes me wonder.”
For a moment she seemed to drift away, and then she caught herself and turned to Flynn. “What do you plan to do?”
“I don’t think there’s much I can do, but I’ll try to get some closure for Begitte. Help her understand a little, help her move on.”
“I think that would be good. For all of us.”
“Mrs. Jensen, do you think it would be all right if I visited with your daughter if I need to? Just to understand a little?”
“I don’t see what she can say; she hasn’t seen Luna in years. But I suppose it would be all right for you to speak with her.”
Mrs. Jensen took a pen from her purse and wrote the address on a napkin. “She probably won’t have much to say.”
He took the napkin but said nothing. In his experience, sometimes it was what people didn’t say that was important.
* * *
After the dishes were cleared and the families had all returned to their homes, Flynn sat with Gorski in the quiet dining room.
“I’m going to find out a little more about the sister’s death,” he told Gorski.
“I figured.”
“Can you stay here and hold the fort? In case those goons come back?”
“I don’t think those boys will be back anytime soon.”
“You know as well as I do . . .”
“Where there’s one thug, there’s more.”
“Exactly.”
Gorski shrugged. “I’ve got nothing better to do. So, what do you know?”
“I don’t think the house fire was
an accident.”
“Why?”
“I can’t prove it to a courtroom standard, but the burn pattern doesn’t match the story. Thorsen said the fire brigade told him it was an electrical fire, but there’s no residue on the breaker board. No sign that any of the breakers shorted or caught fire. And the neighbor who called it in said the flames were visible at the rear of the property but not when they first ran out front. Not until the whole house caught. And the burn pattern supports that. The debris tells me that it was hottest at the back and then right down the middle, but then it spread left and right.”
“An accelerant?”
“That’s what it looked like.”
“Someone poured petrol around the house?”
“That’s my guess. And then there’s evidence that someone walked back from the property through the field—crushed barley that looks trampled by feet—and it goes up a rise to a track.”
“Could it be a farmer?”
“Farmers don’t tend to trample their crops. That’s money down the drain. And there was a vehicle up there.”
“You saw a vehicle?”
“No, I didn’t see one. But the track has ruts in it, made by a tractor. Farmers don’t keep a fleet of tractors. They use the same one, over and over. The ruts become consistent. And they are. The outer ruts are a standard sixty-inch width—thirty-six inches across the rear and twelve inches for each tire.”
“So?”
“So there’s a second track. Not in the dirt but in the barley beside the track, where wheels have crushed the edge of the planting. The rain has washed away any tire marks, but the broken stalks are still broken. Those marks are wider, about two meters, I’d say.”
“Wider than the tractor?”
“Yes. Sixty inches is about one point five meters. So a vehicle was up there that was two hundred and fifty centimeters wider on each side.”
“Like what?”
“A Land Rover has a wheel width of just under two meters.”
“Like the one the goons drove?”
“It’s all guesses right now. But I’m just saying, something doesn’t add up. So keep your eyes open.”
Chapter Sixteen
Flynn spent the next day on the move. After a breakfast of thin pancakes and equally thin coffee, Begitte sent him on his way with a brown bag lunch. Thorsen gave him a ride to the station in Veksø, and he caught a train into Copenhagen. He had to wait an hour in the central station before getting another train to the old ferry town of Vordingborg.
He didn’t get a ferry. Vordingborg station wasn’t anywhere near the grandeur of Københavns Hovedbanegård, so he waited outside the station and ate the cured ham and cheese sandwiches and the piece of cake from Begitte. Eventually he took a bus east across the bridge to the island of Møn. The bus terminated in the largest town on the island, Stege.
Flynn stepped down from the bus outside a bright yellow bus station. He was looking at a channel that ran by the bus depot. The water was gray, and small ripples cut across it from the wind driven through the channel.
There were no strange vehicles in the depot. All the other passengers had wandered off, going about their business, while he lingered watching over the water. He thought back to the map he had seen on the computer the previous day and started walking. He hit the main street and turned right. The town was small with few people around, but he kept his eyes open for trouble regardless.
He walked along the quaint one-way main street. As he got into the center of town, the foot traffic increased but the number of cars didn’t. He ambled past busy shops which, unlike the big cities he was used to, didn’t seem to be chain store after chain store. The street was lined with short poles holding the Danish flag, each fluttering in the breeze. It was cooler here, closer to the water, and periodically clouds ebbed in, masking the sun.
He strolled by what appeared to be a town square, where tables and chairs and been set up in the intermittent sunshine, people enjoying coffee and pastries. A woman was offering raffle tickets to win a tiny two-door car parked under a popup canopy—Flynn wasn’t certain that a grown adult could have fit inside.
It took ten minutes to walk right through the town. At the far end, as the buildings gave way to fields, Flynn found the police station. Like police stations around the world, it was on the outskirts of town, where the public funds stretched further. The building was red brick with a large but empty parking lot out front.
As he walked across the lot, he noticed a squat gray building beside it that resembled a county jail, with a sign out front that read: Bibliotek. That explained the large parking lot. More city buildings on the cheaper real estate at the edge of town.
Flynn walked past the library and up the steps to the police station. He found the door locked. He cupped his hand on the glass and peered inside. It looked like the lobby of a library, neat and clean. For a moment he wondered if he had the right door. He took a step back and checked the signage. Then he heard a car stop behind him. He turned and discovered he was in the right place.
An officer stood behind the open door of her tiny police car. She was a tall woman, blond hair tied back in a ponytail.
“Det er lukket,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” said Flynn. “Taler du engelsk?”
“Yes, I speak English. The library is closed, unless you are a member.”
“No, I’m not. I’m actually looking for the police station.”
“It is also closed.”
“It’s closed?”
“Yes.”
“It’s four thirty in the afternoon.”
She looked at her watch. “Yes.”
“When does it open?”
“Thursday.”
“Thursday? It’s Monday now.”
“Yes.”
“You’re saying the police station is closed until Thursday?”
“Yes.” She seemed to be tiring of his questions and the redundant answers.
“What happens if someone needs the police before then?”
“They call 112 for emergencies, or 114 for enquiries.”
“And if they need the police in person?”
“They go to Vordingborg during the week, or Næstved. It’s twenty-four hours.”
“I need to speak with the officer in charge of an investigation into a suicide.”
The officer frowned. Flynn noted that it didn’t hurt her face one bit. It gave her a supermodel sort of look.
“What suicide?”
“A woman, a week ago. At Møns Klint.”
“I responded to that call.”
“You did?”
“Yes.”
“Then I need to speak with you.”
“Who are you?”
Flynn made his way down the steps and stopped short of the police car. “My name is John Flynn. I’m a family friend of the deceased. The sister of the deceased has asked me to learn about what happened. As you can imagine, she is traumatized. She wants to understand, but she doesn’t know what to ask.”
“And you do?”
“Yes. I was in the military. I had to deal with suicides, sometimes.”
“The woman went out to the cliff and jumped off.”
“I know. I think we’re trying to understand why.”
“I don’t know why.”
“Did you find the body?”
“No. It was found by a tourist walking on the beach.”
“And they called it in?”
“Yes.”
“But not to here,” he said, looking around the lot. “Because it’s never open.”
“It’s open on Thursdays.”
“Is that a high-crime day?”
“No. We don’t get much crime.”
“So if the police station isn’t open, how did you come to take the call?”
“I live here.”
Flynn nodded. “How would I find the place where she was found?”
“It’s at the other end of the island. Follow the road east.”
>
“I’m on public transport.”
“The buses will not be running out there for much longer. You might not get back today.”
“I just need to see it, so I can try to help the deceased’s sister. I’m not looking to stay.”
The officer looked at Flynn and then around the lot. Hers was the only car. It wasn’t exactly Times Square.
“I will take you. Get in.”
Flynn strode around the car and opened the door. He wasn’t going to say no to a ride, and he could kill two birds on the trip. He slipped into the car and found his knees up around his ears, so he jacked the seat back and looked at the officer. She had done the same thing, her seat already in place.
“I’m Politiassistent Katya Schmidt.”
“Nice to meet you.”
She started the car and pulled around a tight turn. He watched her as she checked for traffic on a road that hadn’t seen any in what Flynn suspected was hours, maybe days. She had high cheekbones, blue eyes, and smooth white skin. She was stunningly beautiful. He imagined that in some ways that made her job easier, and in other ways much harder.
They drove by a cemetery, a grocery store, and a church and then out into open countryside, rolling fields of green. Then she spoke.
“Where are you from?”
“I’m American, but I’ve lived most of my life here in Europe.”
“Your parent was a diplomat?”
“Kind of. My dad was a Marine. He spent a lot of time at NATO. How about you? You lived here in Stege long?”
“All my life.”
Flynn looked out the window and watched nothing roll by. It was a hell of a place to come from, and a hell of a place to stay.
“Why is the police station never open?”
“It’s open on—”
“Thursday, yeah, I get it. But why only one day?”
“People need to fill out forms, complete reports. Non-urgent things. As I said, we don’t get a lot of crime.”
They drove through a number of villages—some small, some tiny, some nothing more than signposts. Officer Schmidt slowed as she cruised by a campground, where Flynn saw camper trailers and tents in the fields through the trees. As they continued, the trees grew thicker, lush with spring leaves, and before long they were enveloped by a canopy of foliage that reminded Flynn of the wooded parts of New Jersey.
The Rotten State: A John Flynn Thriller Page 9
