The Postcard Killers

by James Patterson

  The free bus to the airport’s terminal buildings was almost empty. Sylvia sat on one of the seats, Mac standing beside her, wearing the backpack. No one paid any attention to them. Why should they?

  They got off at International Terminal 5 and went straight to the departure hall.

  Sylvia had managed to get a fair ways ahead before she noticed that Mac wasn’t right behind her. Now where was he?

  She turned all the way around and saw him standing and looking up at one of the large screens where departures were listed.

  She hurried back quickly.

  “Darling,” she whispered, sidling up to him. “What are you doing?”

  Mac’s light gray eyes were staring fixedly at the flashing destinations.

  “We could take a plane,” he said.

  Sylvia put her tongue in his ear.

  “Come on, baby,” she said in a low voice. “We’ve got lots left to do. Today is party time!”

  “We could go home,” Mac said. “We could stop this game of ours now. Quit while we’re ahead. Retire as legends.”

  She wound her arm around his waist and blew softly on his neck.

  “The train leaves in four minutes,” she said. “You. Me. We’re on it.”

  He let her lead him off to the escalators, down into the underground, and out onto the platform. Only when the doors had closed and the express train had set off for the center of Stockholm did Sylvia let go of him.

  “Legends,” she said, “always die young. But not us.”

  Chapter 17

  Sunday, June 13

  A UNIFORMED SECURITY GUARD STOOD up in a glass cubicle over to Jacob’s left. He pressed a button and said something incomprehensible in a metallic loudspeaker voice.

  “I don’t speak Swedish,” Jacob said. “Can you tell Dessie Larsson that I’m here?”

  “What about?”

  “The postcard killings,” he said, holding up his New York police badge. “I’m homicide.”

  The man pulled his stomach in and yanked up his baggy trousers.

  “Take a seat for a moment.”

  He gestured toward the row of wooden benches over by the door.

  The stone floor of the Aftonposten lobby was slippery from the rain outside.

  Jacob slid a couple of steps before getting his balance back, along with his dignity. He straightened his shoulders, wondering if perhaps he was not entirely sober yet.

  With a groan, he sank onto the nearest bench. It was hard and cold.

  He had to pull himself together. Never before, never during all those years raising Kimmy, had he let himself sink this low. The previous day had vanished in a haze of vodka and aquavit. The Swedes also had something they called brännvin, a spirit made from potatoes that was pure dynamite.

  Hoping he wasn’t about to be sick, he rested his head in his hands.

  The killers weren’t far away. Even though he felt hazy about many things, he could sense their proximity.

  They were still walking the city’s streets, hiding in the rain, and had probably already found their next victims—if they hadn’t already dealt with them…

  Jacob shivered slightly and realized how cold and wet he was. His hands were filthy. There was no shower in his room in the youth hostel where he was staying, and he hadn’t bothered trying to find the shared bathroom. The building depressed him. It was an old prison, and his room was a cell from the 1840s, which he was sharing with a Finnish poet. He and the poet had squeezed onto the lower bunk of the bed and drunk their way through the vodka, aquavit, and brännvin, and afterward the poet had gone into the city to dance the tango somewhere.

  Jacob had spent the night throwing up into the wastepaper basket and feeling miserable. There wasn’t enough alcohol in the whole of the country to drown his thoughts about Kimmy and her murder.

  He beat on his forehead with his fists.

  Now that he was so close to the bastards, his own failings were overtaking him.

  He got gingerly to his feet and set off toward the glass cubicle again. The soles of his shoes had dried and had a better grip on the floorboards.

  The glass box was empty now. The guard had gone off somewhere. Shit.

  Shielding his eyes from the glare of the glass with his hands, he tried to see into the newsroom. As far as he could tell, there was no one about.

  What sort of fucked-up place was this? Wasn’t this supposed to be a newspaper?

  He walked back to the security post and buzzed the alarm. No response, no one anywhere.

  He put his finger on the buzzer and held it there. The guard finally approached, holding a mug of coffee in one hand and a pastry in the other.

  “Hello!” Jacob called. “Can you please call Dessie Larsson and tell her I’m here?”

  The guard glanced at him, then turned his back and started talking to someone out of sight.

  Jacob banged the glass wall with the palm of his hand.

  “Hello!” he yelled. “Come on! It’s a matter of life and death!”

  “You’re too late,” said a voice behind him.

  He spun around to see the journalist standing in the stairwell behind him. Her face was white, her green eyes tired. There were dark rings around them.

  “The picture arrived this morning,” she said. “The forensics team already took it away.”

  He stepped toward her and opened his mouth, but he couldn’t get a single question out.

  “A man and a woman,” Dessie Larsson said. “Their throats were cut.”

  Chapter 18

  DESSIE OPENED THE DOOR TO the newsroom with her card and code.

  “I’m not going to offer you anything to drink,” she said over her shoulder. “If you’d turned up yesterday, you might have gotten a cup of coffee, but you lost your chance. This way…”

  She headed off to the right through the office, aiming for the crime desk.

  “I’m not here for coffee,” Jacob Kanon said behind her. “Have the bodies been found?”

  He was in a bad mood and stank like hell. Nice guy.

  “Not yet,” said Dessie. “Give us a little time, will you. Murder is a bit less common here than in New York. Suicide is our specialty.”

  She sat down behind her desk and pointed to the wobbly metal chair in front.

  “When was the letter posted?” he asked.

  “Yesterday afternoon, at the central Stockholm post office. We don’t usually get mail on a Sunday, but the police ordered an extra delivery.”

  He sat down on the chair and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees.

  “Did you see the picture?” he asked. “What did it show? Were there any particular characteristics? Anything that could identify the crime scene?”

  Dessie looked carefully at the man in front of her. He looked even worse in daylight than he had in the gloom of the stairwell. His hair was a mess and his clothes were dirty. But his blue eyes were burning with an intensity that brought his whole face alive. She liked something about him—maybe the intensity. Probably that.

  “Just a Polaroid picture, nothing else.”

  She looked away as she passed him a copy of the picture. Jacob Kanon took it with both hands and stared at the bodies.

  Dessie was trying to look calm and unaffected. Violence didn’t usually bother her, but this was different.

  The victims were so young, their deaths so cold and calculated, so inhuman.

  “Scandinavian setting,” the policeman stated. “Pale furniture, pale background, blond people. Did they take the envelope away?”

  Dessie swallowed.

  “Forensics? Of course they did.”

  “Have you got a copy?”

  Dessie handed him a photocopy of the ordinary oblong envelope. The address was written in neat capital letters across the front.

  DESSIE LARSSON

  AFTONPOSTEN

  115 10 STOCKHOLM

  She looked uncomfortably at her own name.

  “They won’t find anything on it,” Jacob Ka
non said. “These killers leave no fingerprints, and they don’t lick the stamps. Was there anything on the back?”

  She shook her head.

  He held up the picture of the bodies.

  “Can I have a copy of this?”

  “I’ll print a new one for you,” Dessie said, clicking the command through her computer and pointing at a printer some distance away. “I’m going to get a coffee,” she said, getting up. “Do you want one?”

  “I thought I’d lost my chance,” Jacob Kanon replied, heading off toward the printer to get the picture.

  Dessie went over to the coffee machine with a gathering feeling of unreality. She pressed for coffee with milk for herself, and black, extra strong for the American. He looked like he needed it.

  “They have to make a mistake sometime,” Jacob said as he took the coffee. “Sooner or later they’ll get lazy, or overconfident, or just unlucky. That moment can’t be far off now. That’s what I’m thinking.”

  Dessie pushed the terrible coffee away from her and fixed her gaze on the American.

  “I’ve got a lot of questions,” she said, “but this one will do for a start: Why me? Why did they pick me? You seem to have a lot of answers. Do you know why?”

  At that moment her cell phone began to vibrate. She looked at the display.

  Gabriella calling.

  “It’s one of the police team,” she said.

  “One of the team on this case? Answer it, then!”

  She took the call and turned her chair so she had her back to Jacob Kanon.

  “We think we’ve found the victims,” Gabriella said. “A German couple out on Dalarö. It’s a real mess.”

  Chapter 19

  DESSIE TOOK A DEEP BREATH.

  “Who found them?” she asked in Swedish.

  Jacob Kanon walked around her desk so that he was in front of her again.

  “The cleaner,” Gabriella said through the phone. “We’ve got a local patrol out there now.”

  “Have they found the victims?” Jacob asked.

  Dessie turned away from him again, twisting her body.

  “Are you sure it’s the couple in the picture?” she asked.

  “They’ve found them, haven’t they?” the American persisted, annoying her.

  “Who’s that talking in the background?” Gabriella asked.

  “The coroner will find traces of several different substances in the victims’ blood,” Jacob Kanon said loudly, right next to the phone. “Partly THC and alcohol, but also a drug that will be identified as—”

  “When did the murders take place?” Dessie asked, putting her finger in her ear to shut out the noisy American.

  “I’m worried about you,” Gabriella said. “These killers mean business. I want you to take special care.”

  Jacob Kanon grabbed Dessie’s office chair and swung it around so that her knees ended up between his.

  “Get the address!” he said, looking her right in the eyes. “Get the address of the crime scene right now.”

  “What’s the address of the crime scene?” Dessie asked, flustered, feeling the warmth from his legs through the thin fabric of her trousers.

  “Are you at the paper? Is that the crazy Yank?”

  Gabriella’s voice turned shrill and accusing again.

  “What’s he doing there? You let him come into the newsroom? Why?”

  Dessie avoided the man’s bright blue eyes, feeling her irritation at Gabriella bubbling over. She was very close to shouting at her.

  “The address, Gaby. This is a newspaper, and these murders are news. We’ll have to send someone out there.”

  “What? Since when are you a newshound?”

  A stubborn streak that should have vanished when she was three years old welled up inside her and made her cheeks burn.

  “Would you rather we sent Alexander Andersson? I can arrange for that.”

  Gabriella Oscarsson gave her an address out on Dalarö.

  “But whatever you do,” she said abruptly, “don’t bring the Yank with you.”

  Then she hung up.

  Dessie put her cell down. Jacob Kanon let go of her chair and took a step back.

  “Where is it? Where’s the crime scene?”

  “Forty-five minutes away,” Dessie said, looking at her watch. “South of here, on an island.”

  She walked around the desk, hoisted her knapsack onto her back, picked up a pen and notepad, and stopped in front of Jacob Kanon.

  “Shall we go?”

  Chapter 20

  IT HAD STOPPED RAINING, BUT the pavement was still wet. The tires hissed as Dessie steered the Volvo from the newspaper’s auto pool through the puddles outside the paper’s garage. She braked at the main entrance and opened the passenger door for Jacob Kanon.

  The stench of him once he shut the door was quite dreadful. This was a big mistake.

  “God,” she said, opening the window. “Haven’t you learned to use soap and water in America?”

  He fastened his seat belt.

  “We’re in good time,” he said. “Almost as quick as the police. That’s a good source you’ve got.”

  Dessie switched gears and drove off. She paused for a moment before replying.

  “She’s my ex.”

  The American sat in silence for a moment.

  “Your ex, as in…”

  “Girlfriend, yes,” Dessie said, concentrating on the thin traffic.

  Why was it so hard to talk about it? It was 2010.

  She put her foot down to avoid having to stop at a red light. She peered up at the sky to see if the clouds were showing any sign of breaking up, which they weren’t. She turned on the car radio and found Gentle Favorites. She tried to sing along but didn’t know half the words.

  “What about you?” she asked, to put an end to the silence. “Have you got a girl?”

  “Not anymore,” he said, looking out through the windshield.

  “If you tried showering occasionally, maybe she would have stayed.”

  “She was murdered. In Rome.”

  Shit, shit, shit, what an idiot she was.

  “Sorry,” she said, staring straight ahead now.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said, looking at her. “Kimmy was my family. It was just her and me.”

  So, what happened to the mother? Dessie thought, but she decided to keep her mouth shut this time.

  They headed south along Route 73 in silence, passing the Tyresö road and the vast suburb of Brandbergen. The American leaned forward to study the huge, ugly concrete buildings.

  She peered intently at the road signs and found the exit for Jordbro. The motorway vanished, replaced by a minor road, the 227.

  Not far now.

  She felt her pulse rise. She had been to a lot of crime scenes. She was used to broken patio doors and overturned drawers, but she had never been to the site of any murder, let alone a really bad one.

  “When we get there,” Dessie said, “what can we expect to find?”

  Jacob Kanon looked at her, his eyes sparkling.

  “Blood,” he said. “Even small amounts of blood look huge when they’re spread across furniture and floors. You know the stain on the wall when you squash a mosquito? We’re talking about large amounts here.”

  Dessie clutched the wheel harder and took the hard right toward Björnö.

  Chapter 21

  THE MURDER HOUSE WAS ON the shore by the sound, facing the island of Edesö. Dessie didn’t want to be here.

  It was small, ordinary, yellow, with carved detailing on the veranda and a little hexagonal tower topped by a pennant. A white picket fence with a gate lined the road. Freshly green birches framed the house, marsh marigolds edging the gravel drive up to the door.

  A policeman was busy cordoning off the site with blue-and-white tape down by the shore.

  A second officer was talking into his cell phone by the corner of the house.

  Dessie stopped by the fence. She held up her compact digital ca
mera and took a few pictures of the house.

  Jacob Kanon pushed past her, opened the gate, and snuck under the plastic cordon.

  “Hang on,” Dessie said, stuffing the camera in her pocket. “You can’t just—”

  “You there!” called the policeman who was tying the cordon around a rowan tree down by the shore. “You can’t come in here, it’s closed to the public.”

  Jacob Kanon held up his police badge as he sped up, heading straight for the house.

  Dessie was half running behind him on trembling legs. “Jacob—stop!” she called.

  “New York Police Department,” Jacob called back. “They want to talk to me about the investigation. It’s all set.”

  The policeman with the cell stared at them but kept hold of his phone.

  “Jacob,” Dessie said, “I don’t know if—”

  The American kept going and climbed up onto the veranda. He took a quick look around and kicked off his shoes.

  The outer door was wide open. Jacob stopped at the threshold. Dessie caught up with him and instinctively put her free hand up to cover her nose and mouth.

  “Bloody hell,” she said. “What’s that smell?”

  Chapter 22

  TO THEIR RIGHT WAS A half-open door that seemed to lead to a small kitchen. Ahead and to the left they could see people moving, the floor tiles creaking as they walked about.

  “Hello,” Jacob called out. “My name’s Jacob Kanon and I’m an American homicide officer with information about this case. I only speak English. I’m now entering the crime scene.”

  Dessie fumbled her way out of her shoes, still covering her nose and mouth, desperately trying not to retch. She saw Jacob pull on a pair of thin gloves that he took out of his jacket pocket and then open the door in front of them.

  From her position behind his back she saw Mats Duvall, the superintendent who had questioned her on Friday, turn around and stare at them. He was wearing a light gray suit with a mauve shirt and bright red tie, and he had blue coverings on his shoes. He was holding his electronic notepad in his hand.