The Midnight Witness

by Sara Blaedel

  Louise groaned. This type of canvassing was a killer. The idea was to find people who had been in the same place at the same time a week before, when the crime took place. People might be on the way home from work. If they were lucky, they’d run into witnesses. Karoline was strangled between midnight and seven a.m., so they’d have to be out all night. Louise prepared herself for a lost weekend.

  “I know, I know,” Suhr said. “But we have to do it.”

  Everyone nodded. Heilmann took over. “Has anyone asked for her phone records? I’m assuming she had a cell phone.”

  No one answered.

  “Everyone has a cell phone!” Suhr hissed.

  Heilmann ignored him and turned to Louise. “Check which carrier she used, and let’s get a warrant and light a fire under them.”

  Louise jotted that down in her notepad.

  “Rick suggested we check out Martin Dahl’s childhood friend from Frederikshavn.” She turned to Lars Jørgensen. “Let’s take a good look at how much Karoline’s boyfriend is involved in what his friend is selling. I want to know who he hangs out with. If a few officers help, you might be able to find out who he forgot to pay.”

  After everyone was clear on their assignments for the day, chairs began scraping the office floor.

  “You have a moment?” Suhr asked Louise.

  She followed him into the small reception, where his secretary sat engrossed in her computer screen. She didn’t even look up.

  He closed the door behind them and told her to sit down. “How are things going? Are you doing okay here?”

  That confused Louise. In the three years she’d been in Homicide, Suhr had never asked her how she was doing. “I’m fine.” She cleared her throat, her mind racing to figure out what was coming.

  “Are they treating you decently?”

  He studied her; it was as if he was storing every facial reaction in his memory, and it alarmed her. What was this? They had two major cases, everyone was swamped, and here he was asking how she was doing! She pulled herself together. “Who do you mean, treating me decently?”

  “The others in the department. The men. Is it difficult being a woman among so many men? After all, you and Heilmann are the only females; are you okay with that?”

  Louise smiled. “You mean, am I overcome by all the raw masculinity?”

  He smiled back. “That’s not exactly how I’d put it. I was just wondering if you’re being respected as a woman here. The department never has attracted a lot of women.”

  Wrong, she thought; the department has never hired a lot of women.

  She still suspected him of bringing her on board as a sign of goodwill; occasionally he was accused of keeping women out of the department, and every time it happened, he held her up to prove there was no discrimination on his watch.

  “I really don’t think much about it, but if this is about you wanting to hire more women, I’m all for it. An equal number of men and women is always a good idea.”

  Louise knew that sounded like gender-equality politics, and it dismayed her. She had no quarrel with the women’s movement, with female networking and women speaking out for equal rights. All that was fine as long as nobody forced her to be part of it. She was sick and tired of seeing the same female writers squawk every time women’s rights had to be defended.

  She sighed. The only person she dared say this to was Camilla.

  Her boss interrupted her thoughts. “Do you have any problems with how people talk here?”

  “I’ve always said I’m fine with working with men. I’m not cut out for the henhouse stuff. But what is it you’re getting at?”

  Suhr tipped his big office chair back and smiled. “You’re more of a man than a lot of the others in our department.”

  Louise wondered whether she was meant to take that as a compliment. She decided to see where this was going.

  “I’ve been asked to write an article for the international police magazine, about how women get along in Homicide here in Copenhagen.”

  Now she understood. How typical. He could have just said thanks but no thanks, that he didn’t have much experience with women in the department. But his vanity wouldn’t let him pass up a chance to have his name on the byline of an article in an international magazine.

  “Well, you could mention that you recommend separate bathrooms for men and women. It makes working together a lot less annoying.”

  He nodded and jotted that down.

  “Is your angle going to be how a woman gets by in an environment where sometimes it turns into a pissing contest, or is it whether women have a harder time at a crime scene?”

  “Probably both. Do you feel your male colleagues have a better handle on the situations that come up?”

  “Not really, but it’s possible they’ve had more practice at keeping their emotions in check. I just don’t think you should be ashamed of reacting to what’s going on.”

  “No, no, of course not.”

  “Sure, you run into things that can be hard to take, but if you can’t, you shouldn’t be working here.” Louise didn’t know what else to say. It was a job, and you responded to the details because they were important to an investigation.

  “But it wouldn’t work with young women lacking your experience?” He wouldn’t let go of it.

  “That’s hard to say. Depends on their attitude. Would you say they shouldn’t work in an operating room, either?” She let that sink in. “Besides, a lot of what we do is paperwork.”

  She suspected he was trying to get her to talk about her breakdown, but if he wanted to discuss it, he’d have to bring it up himself.

  “It’s my impression that you don’t feel discriminated against when you work with the pathologists or the forensic people, is that right?”

  “I haven’t felt that way, no.”

  He leaned forward; she saw the sparkle in his eye. “In fact, Flemming Larsen from Forensic Medicine and Niels Frandsen from Forensic Services both claim you’ll be the first female head of Homicide someday.” He winked at her.

  She smiled and nodded. “Yeah, you’d better watch out.”

  Louise sensed he already was thinking about how to start the article. She stood up and left.

  Karoline Wissinge’s cell phone carrier was TDC. Louise got along well with their head of security, and she hoped he was at work. She didn’t know any of the other TDC people who worked with the police, and anyway, in her experience everything went faster if you dealt with the boss.

  She punched in his number and thought about how great it was that practically everyone had a phone nowadays. Being able to track a person’s movements was an enormous help. Even though they were reasonably certain they already knew where Karoline had been Saturday night, something could show up when they went through her calls and messages. It annoyed her that she hadn’t thought about getting a copy of the phone records.

  Lars Jørgensen smiled cheerily at her from across the desk; she realized she was making faces as a moronic old pop number played in her ears.

  “Hello,” she yelled when she heard a click over the phone, but then a new melody kicked in. She was still on hold, and she drummed her fingers on the desk.

  Finally. “Louise Rick,” she said.

  Before she could say another word, the head of security cut her off. “The girl in the park! That’s who you’re interested in, aren’t you? You need a historical search or location or both?”

  Louise thought it was funny they called it a historical search; cell phones weren’t all that old, but unlike a location search, which could be used to track someone’s whereabouts, a historical search went further back. They could look at the records and see who had called a particular cell phone.

  She asked him for both, and he agreed to scan and email them to her. Email didn’t function well at Copenhagen’s Police Headquarters. They had a joint email address, but there were no individual addresses. They seldom used email.

  Louise had just enough time to run over to the
National Police to eat. The tasteless sandwiches at the top-floor cafeteria at Police Headquarters weren’t worth climbing the stairs for except in an emergency. The only thing positive to say about it was the opening hours, which were longer than the big cafeteria across the street.

  There was a note on her desk when she got back, telling her to call Forensic Services. She asked for Frandsen.

  “Did you find anything?” she asked.

  “Zero. Nothing. No trace of fingerprints whatsoever, and it was written with the type of felt tip you can buy everywhere, that’s used at most workplaces.”

  Louise sighed. There had to be some damn detail they could work with, someplace. She thanked him and hung up.

  Lars Jørgensen was busy searching for the childhood friend, Anders Hede, but she could see he’d heard enough to know the card hadn’t panned out.

  “Who lays a card like that at the scene of a young woman’s murder?” he said. “If it isn’t the murderer?”

  “I don’t know. But apparently someone who knew we’d probably look for him, since he took care of the fingerprints.”

  Jørgensen frowned. “He? Are you sure it’s a man?”

  “I think so. The writing was blocky, not really feminine, but of course you can never be sure.”

  Louise walked out to give Heilmann her report.

  “Nothing but dead ends,” she said, after sitting down across from her boss.

  “You’re right, we haven’t got much to go on yet.” Heilmann pushed a newspaper across the desk. Louise saw the obituary, framed by a blue fountain pen. Karoline Wissinge. Our beloved girl. The funeral would take place on Saturday.

  The day we’re doing the week-after canvass, Louise thought. “Nice for them that it’s so soon.” She was thinking about the parents. With some homicide cases, Forensic Medicine kept the body for quite a while, which she knew was hard on the family.

  “Suhr was looking for you a while ago,” Heilmann said. “I know he’s going to the funeral, and I assume he’ll ask you to go along.”

  At that moment Suhr walked by in the hallway and stopped when he spotted Louise. “How’s your Saturday looking?”

  “Okay.” She sent Peter a mental apology; she’d been looking forward to spending the day with him before the canvassing that evening. But they still could go out for brunch.

  “I think it’s a good idea if three of us attend the funeral.” Obviously, he’d already decided. “Would you tell Michael Stig?” He disappeared down the hallway.

  Louise snorted. Errand girl. Maybe she should have pushed him more when they were talking about the article.

  The door to Stig and Toft’s office was closed. She knocked softly and stuck her head in. They were sitting at their desks, absorbed in reports. A small radio was playing in the background. It was nice in there, Louise noticed. They’d worked together for several years. Even though Toft was a lot older than Stig, she’d often noticed that they respected each other, backed each other up. Cared about each other. Toft was a likable man. His self-assured and calm demeanor was catching; you always felt things were under control with him. Stig wasn’t her cup of tea, but she wasn’t sure if others felt the same way.

  Several sports medals hung from the bulletin board behind them. They bowled in the police league and had won several tournaments. At first, she’d laughed a bit at them—men and gold medals! Bowling made Louise think of friends having fun, enormous mugs of beer, days with sore arms and butts. She couldn’t take their enthusiasm all that seriously.

  “Am I disturbing you?” She walked over to Stig.

  “You can disturb me anytime you want, beautiful.” His eyes lingered on her a bit too long. He invited her to sit down, but she declined.

  “Karoline is being buried on Saturday, and Suhr wants you and me to go with him.”

  “Aw, shit. I can’t. Tell him he has to find someone else.”

  “He just went back to his office; I think you can catch him there.” She wheeled around before he could say anything more. Who the hell did he think he was?

  Louise sat down in her office and gathered her thoughts. She’d focused 100 percent on finding a lead, but it hadn’t happened. She’d set aside the big picture, had dug around only in what she was involved in. Sometimes it was helpful to step back and look at the case from a distance. Look up so you don’t stare yourself blind at specific leads and statements.

  She grabbed a notebook out of her drawer and began drawing blocks. Above them she wrote the elements of the case they’d already been through. Interviews, family, friends, Baren, colleagues at work.

  They must have overlooked something. She realized she was angry. Not about anything specific. Or was it Michael Stig? No, she was just mad. Annoyed. Everything was at an impasse, and she felt restless. Everyone was working their asses off, each on their own section of the puzzle. Sometimes when they didn’t have any concrete leads, they became so eager to find something new that they weren’t thorough enough with what they had.

  A young woman couldn’t just show up as a corpse in a park without somebody noticing something.

  She began writing names in the boxes she’d drawn, but when she got to friends, she crumpled the paper and stood up.

  Heilmann wasn’t in her office. Louise checked if there was a car free. None of them were taken, so she walked back to the office and called Forensic Medicine to hear if Flemming Larsen was around.

  “Hi, Rick, when are you and I going out together?” he said when he heard who was calling.

  Her mood lightened when she heard his happy voice. A voice that fit his extremely tall frame, six-six or so. And he was both cheerful and competent. You could always laugh with him, but when he had something to say, you listened.

  “I was thinking of dropping by, if you have time.”

  “Always time for you.” Louise knew that was an exaggeration. Most of the time he had far too much to do. “Anything special I need to prepare for, before you show up?”

  She heard his beeper in the background. “If you have time for a cup of coffee and a chat about Karoline Wissinge, that would be great.” She added that she could come later, that there was just something she wanted to bounce off him.

  “Come on over. We’re always busy, but a man’s gotta take his coffee break.”

  Louise guessed he had no more autopsies that day, since he was making time for her. Once he’d told her that he and the other pathologists each did one or two autopsies a day. Often, she’d wondered how he could handle cutting up so many bodies. He laughed when she asked him about it. He didn’t do the cutting, he said, they had assistants for that, or pathologist technicians, as they were now called. As if that changed anything. He didn’t see the body in front of him as Mr. Jensen or Mrs. Jørgensen; Louise of course realized that. But not long ago he had confessed something to her; he felt much worse examining a baby victimized by sexual assault than when he opened the chest cavity of a corpse. She could definitely understand that.

  Louise had brought a suspect into the examination room at the Department of Forensic Medicine one day. A reconstruction of an extremely violent assault was to be made, and before that the suspect had to be measured, weighed, and examined for special characteristics. She’d never noticed the small examination couch along one wall of the room before, but she felt nauseated when Flemming explained its purpose. The instrument beside the table was a colposcope, a microscope in a type of binoculars through which he could see if a hymen had been broken. A Disney figure was painted on the ceiling above the couch. Louise had shuddered.

  During her first experience with that type of case, she had seriously considered whether she wanted to work at Homicide. She hadn’t thought so much about how cases of sexual assault against children were a large part of their job.

  Since then she’d handled several more. Even though they were gruesome, she’d managed to distance herself and maintain her professionalism, but it was difficult to leave such cases at work when she got home.

  Also,
the investigations of some of these cases were challenging. When too much time passed between the assault and the examination, for example. She’d been surprised when Flemming told her that some lesions in a child’s hymen healed in a matter of a few weeks, making it difficult to determine if it had been broken. That’s why they looked for tiny scars on the hymen with the colposcope.

  Louise told Flemming she would be right over. She sat for a while after hanging up. Did she have the right to take up his time, just because she needed a broader view of the case? Maybe the others on the team felt they were making good progress. She doubted that, but she could have checked to make sure her little expedition was okay. What the hell. Surely there was nothing wrong with having a cup of coffee with a colleague.

  She walked into Heilmann’s office for the keys to the car. “I’ll be gone for a while.” She grabbed the keys and hurried out.

  “See you,” Heilmann said to her back.

  8

  She found a parking space behind the National Hospital and sat for a moment, gazing out at Fælled Park. A class had wheedled their teacher into going out to play soccer, she guessed. There weren’t many other people in sight.

  What did she really want to ask Flemming about? What didn’t she know, or what did she think she could find out? She shook her head; maybe she just needed to get away from Police Headquarters and talk to someone who no doubt had his own ideas about the case.

  Louise walked up the four steps and waited for the large sliding glass doors to open. She studied the sign beside the entrance. Institute of Molecular Pathology. Farther down: Lab for Pathological Proficiencies. What the hell was that?