by Inger Wolf
“First we have to have another little chat with the Colombian,” Trokic said. “And I have a dinner appointment later on.” He hoped they would let that pass.
Lisa and Jasper glanced at each other. “Dinner!” they said, in unison.
“Who is it?” Jasper said.
“Nobody.”
“But what about us?”
“What do you mean, what about you?”
“Can we come too?”
Trokic stared back at them. “No, you can’t come too.”
They giggled.
“Daniel abandons the sinking ship and desperate crew for a female Nobody,” Jasper said.
“If we could just forget Daniel for a moment,” Lisa said. “I have this feeling that there’s something else underneath all this. I think we’re forgetting something—the email to Clara Jørgensen. Her dreams.”
“But now we know this drug, the one I can’t pronounce the name of, causes nightmares,” Jasper said. “A mentally disturbed woman’s fantasies.”
She told them what she’d found out the day before at Atlantis. And now she was waiting to hear from this Michael Tarp, who apparently knew something about Maja. “I left a message, but he hasn’t called back yet.”
Trokic shrugged and sat back down again. “Clara knew her better than anyone. It’s not impossible that there’s more to this, that it means something.”
Jasper shook his head. “I don’t get it. We’ve got this mysterious drug from South America, and now there’s all these horse predators.”
Lisa was indignant. “All right, I’ll just check it out myself.”
“Good idea. And here, you can have the rest.”
He handed her the bag of licorice.
“Keep it; I don’t want any more of that crap! There aren’t any more cola bottles left anyway.”
Jasper looked astonished. “Matador Mix never had cola bottles in it!”
“That’s not true; they used to, but they took them out.”
“Okay now, listen. You are speaking to the foremost authority on the subject. And believe me, if one single cola bottle had ever even attempted to infiltrate a bag of Matador Mix, I would’ve known it.”
Suddenly, she wasn’t so sure of herself. “It might’ve been a fried egg.”
“This is fascinating. I hate to break it up,” Trokic said, “but it’s time to stop by Federico’s place and find out what he’s hiding.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
It was strange how habits could be so fixed. Almost indestructible. If you do something a certain way a certain number of times, it’s expected that this is how it should be done. Like serving pastry with coffee. Sitting in the same chair off to the side in the briefing room. The roles during an interrogation. These things almost become laws. The laws of small things. And now Trokic had run into another of these odd little unwritten rules, which ironically dealt with avoiding rules. It was an ancient habit by now, from all the way back when he and Jasper had been partners on patrol.
They stood outside an apartment on Tordenskjoldsgade in Trøjbjerg, in front of a battered old wooden door, its paint hanging in strips. It wasn’t the town’s most exclusive neighborhood. The hallway smelled of urine and some vague odor, possibly from innumerable smoked joints and wet dogs. It had been a long, long time since anyone had bothered to wash the stairway, and someone had decorated the walls in several places with obscenities.
“Rental apartments,” Jasper said. “Lisa called the building’s owner in Aalborg. He wasn’t happy to share information with us, but he did say he’s rented this apartment out for just one month. He didn’t know who was living here. They handed him eight thousand crowns in cash, which is definitely on the high side.”
“Cash, no lease? He had to have been suspicious.”
“Yeah, but Lisa says he took the money and asked no questions. By the way, these apartments are dirt cheap and for sale, if we’re interested.”
“I think I’ll pass.” Trokic pushed the buzzer, a dark brown button that had seen better days. They waited a moment, listening for any activity inside. Nothing. Outside, a car drove over a manhole cover, and in the distance, someone was laughing loudly.
“Maybe the buzzer doesn’t work,” Jasper said. He pounded his fist against the brown door, which shook with every blow.
More silence.
Jasper tested the doorknob and turned to Trokic. “It’s not locked. What do you think? Should we take a look inside?”
“Why isn’t it locked?”
“How should I know? Maybe he just stepped out for a minute. Down to the kiosk or something. Why don’t we stick our nose in for a second?”
“Without a search warrant?”
Of course, he knew that’s what Jasper was suggesting. And now his colleague proved that the laws of small things in this instance still prevailed when he put on a look of astonishment and said, “But we heard someone say, ‘Come in,’ clear as a bell, didn’t we?”
Trokic hesitated. They’d used this trick a few times before to sniff around, until Agersund had made a pointed comment about the rare hearing defect the two officers seemed to have acquired simultaneously, immediately after becoming partners. Once they had waltzed right into a room in Viby, where a woman in her fifties was sitting buck naked on a mirror, focused on investigating her intimate parts in detail. The ensuing complaint had cured their hearing. And now he was sitting in for Agersund. He should keep his nose clean.
Jasper was his usual optimistic self. “What do you say?”
He had to admit, this was important. It was highly likely that Federico Carlos knew something about Maja’s death, something about the South American drug.
He just couldn’t prove it. As far as Jasper was concerned, it was no coincidence that he was an excellent poker player, and not only because of his memory; he could look completely blank, unaffected, a talent that had saved them several times. God only knew what genes he’d inherited.
He sighed. The hunger he’d felt shortly before was gone now. “Let’s take a look. A very quick look. We stick our heads just inside the door, so we can still hear someone coming up the steps. He knows who we are, remember.”
“That’s my boy.” Jasper pushed the door open.
Jasper gazed around the room in surprise. “Now here’s somebody who’s taken minimalism a little too far.”
He was right. They’d stepped into a white-walled apartment consisting of a hall, bathroom, and one single square room that functioned as a kitchen and living room. Functioned was an exaggeration. The only furnishings were a computer table with an HP laptop and a stained blue office chair. An ashtray and a reddish-brown fleece blanket lay on the green carpet. The walls were bare, no rugs, no curtains. A small backpack with a few clothes sticking out occupied one corner.
In the kitchen section stood a kettle, a cup, and a half-full glass of Nescafe.
“Cleaning this place shouldn’t be a big problem,” Jasper said.
Trokic opened the refrigerator. It wasn’t even plugged in. Empty shelves stared back at him. “Nothing here. You can’t live like this; he must have another place. Where are his clothes and all his personal things?”
“I heard about this guy once who didn’t feel like washing his clothes. So, he went into a secondhand store and changed clothes whenever what he was wearing got dirty.”
“Maybe there’s another room somewhere. Or a storage room.”
Jasper pointed a thin finger at the laptop. “I’m more interested in that. What if he’s been communicating with our killer about this burundanga? They must have had some sort of contact and talked about the drug and its effects. And he has to know him from somewhere. I suppose we shouldn’t take it with us, even though the idiot left his door open. Can Lisa hack into it?”
Trokic took a deep breath. “Don’t you think we’ve caused enough trouble for one day?”
“Can she though?”
“I don’t think that will fly. Unlike us, she has morals.”
&n
bsp; “Surely, we can help her get rid of them?”
Trokic turned serious. “No, that’s out. We’ll have to try for a search warrant, get hold of it that way.”
Jasper stared hungrily at the machine in front of them. They both hated to see potential evidence right under their nose and not be able to do a thing about it. This was exactly the type of situation that was too big of a temptation at times.
“But you know we won’t get one; we don’t have shit on this guy.”
Trokic sighed. He felt limp. “Yeah. I know. We’ll have to wait and see what shows up.”
“And in the meantime, this laptop can be wiped seven times, or whatever it is Lisa says it takes to send a hard drive into digital heaven.”
Jasper spoke from experience; Trokic knew that. He’d talked about his nightmares after selling his computer to an IT student, when Lisa had described how easy it was to resurrect what had been on it. And it wasn’t exactly squeaky-clean stuff Jasper had been looking at, either.
“We’ll have to run the risk.”
“What a bunch of horseshit.” Jasper swung his car keys; they whistled through the air, which startled him. “I want to find out who he sold the drug to. One of them is our man.”
“Unless he gave it to her himself.”
“We might as well get the hell out of here,” Jasper said.
Suddenly, the building’s front door burst open, and someone started up the stairs. They hustled out of the apartment and closed the door behind them. The sound of the latch closing was way too loud, and Trokic’s brain worked frantically to come up with some excuse to be messing with the door. A female in her twenties with bleached, dirty hair and skin whiter than a maggot came up the stairs carrying a plastic sack from Netto, the discount supermarket. She gave them an evil look, the same one she probably gave to any undesirables who dared use the stairs. She stopped in front of them.
“What the hell are you two doing here? Get out before I call the cops.”
Trokic was about to tell her they were the cops when Jasper tugged his jacket and said, “We’re from the electric company. There’s been a complaint about bills, you having any problems with your meter?”
Trokic groaned inside, but even though the woman stared at them testily, she seemed to accept that. He wanted to ask her a few questions, but now that they were representatives of the electric company, that was out. He’d have to have a serious talk with Jasper, and soon. There were limits to what they could get away with. Usually he was the one who bent the rules. Maybe it was catching?
“Nah, I don’t think so,” the maggot said.
“All right then, we’ll be back tomorrow.” Jasper sent her what was meant to be a friendly smile.
“Whatever,” the woman mumbled. She tromped up to the next floor of the crummy apartment building.
Jasper stared straight up as a door above them slammed shut. “Jesus, that was a close call.”
They walked down the stairs.
They sat for a while in the patrol car with the radio on, listening to The Cinematics, Asleep at the Wheel. Jasper turned the volume up all the way and pounded the dashboard in rhythm, all the while keeping a sharp eye on the street outside. Trokic caught himself humming along to the song, even though it wasn’t part of his repertoire, not even close. For a split second, he saw the two of them sitting there, totally focused on their work. Neither of them had much of a life. In fact, they were witnesses to each other’s lives, every single day, like two people in an arranged marriage who had learned to put up with each other’s habits and, as it now seemed, musical tastes.
They saw the shadowy Colombian man at a distance, carrying a six pack as he strolled down the sidewalk toward the apartment building. He looked as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
Jasper turned down the music. “So, he was out on a beer run. Not very exciting. What the hell do we do now? Go back and talk to one of our law boys and see what they think?”
When in doubt, they usually laid out the details of a case to one of the attorneys at headquarters. It was frowned upon to go to a judge too often with little evidence. Only when an attorney decided they had a decent chance to obtain a search warrant did they knock on a judge’s door.
“I just don’t see us getting a search warrant with what we have. It’s too late, anyway. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I know.” Jasper looked at the enormous diver’s watch on his wrist. “So, what do we do now?”
“Wait and keep an eye on him. And then we’ll pay a visit to Maja’s boyfriend and hear what he knows about a certain South American drug.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
It seemed to Trokic that the deeper they dug into Maja’s story, the more complicated it got. Whenever one door shut, another one opened. A door that led to a maze of new avenues of inquiry. And it was difficult to cover everything with the resources at their disposal.
Trokic and Jasper walked into the living room. A flashy brown suitcase lay open on the floor, revealing the mess inside. Apparently, Martin Isaksen was packing his things. A whirlwind of shapes and colors in the middle of the sterile apartment.
“We’d prefer you sticking around for the time being,” Trokic said. “You’re still a suspect in what is now a homicide case.”
“Maybe he’s not packing up; maybe he’s unpacking,” Jasper said in all his wisdom. He scanned the exclusive apartment.
“Your colleague is right,” Isaksen said.
The man’s arrogance seemed to have vanished for the most part. He looked nervous to Trokic.
“I was with a bunch of friends in Moscow for a bachelor party last weekend, and with all that’s been happening, I haven’t had time to unpack.”
“I see.” Now Trokic gazed around the apartment. Everything looked as if it’d been lifted out of some exclusive design store. The view was of Park Allé and the Town Hall across the street. Buses were lined up, and people hurried along with their eyes glued to the sidewalk. He turned and looked the real estate agent in the eye.
“We have a few more questions for you,” he said, his tone friendlier now.
“Have a seat then, I guess.” Isaksen looked as if he’d rather see them disappear, poof, into the Århusian air. “Coffee?”
They both shook their heads and sat down on the black leather sofa. It nearly engulfed them.
“Okay then, fire away.” So nonchalant now.
“It couldn’t have been much fun for you, Maja being found over there behind your home.” Trokic nodded in the direction of Town Hall Park.
“It wasn’t; believe me. But you didn’t find anything here. Your people looked around down in the courtyard for two hours.”
They sat for a few moments, feeling each other out. Trokic wondered why the boyfriend seemed scared, different now somehow. Trokic was sure he was hiding something.
“It looks like Maja was under the influence of some South American drug when she died. Does that ring any bells for you?”
He and Jasper watched the real estate agent closely.
“No. What drug? She wasn’t a junkie.”
“We’re not saying she was. Just that she had a substance in her blood. An extract from a plant, it’s called burundanga, and it causes delusions and memory loss, among other things.”
Isaksen seemed to mull that over. “I don’t know anything about that drug. It would explain a lot, but why in the world would she start taking something that crazy?”
“We’re not sure, but we doubt she took it knowingly.”
“Well, I didn’t give it to her.”
“We were thinking that a man of the world like you, a globetrotter, might have connections. Or maybe you came up with an idea while you were traveling. Have you ever been to Colombia?”
“No, never.”
“What about South America, anywhere?”
Pause. “I’ve been to Rio.”
“When?”
“Last year, in February.”
“During the c
arnival?”
“Yes. Me and two of my buddies.”
“You could have found out about burundanga there,” Trokic said.
“Listen, I don’t know anything about that drug, and if I did, I wouldn’t give it to her. Come on, she was my girlfriend for Christ’s sake, I cared about her, a lot.”
“Who could it be, then?” Trokic said.
His eyes darted off to the side for a split second. “I really don’t know.”
“She was getting an apartment at the harbor, which you so kindly neglected to mention to us
before. What do you know about it?”
The look Isaksen gave them was icy. Close to absolute zero. “Nothing. I haven’t even seen it. A real estate agent I know showed her around out there. And why should I mention it? She didn’t have it yet, and anyway I was pretty shaken up that day.”
Trokic took a different tack. “Tell us about the last time you were together. When was it, what did you do, how did she seem to you, things like that.”
“It was about two weeks ago; I already told you that. But all right. I was with her, I fixed us a meal, we watched a movie, and I stayed all night with her.”
“How was she doing?”
“She didn’t seem all that bad when I got there. She didn’t eat very much, and she was pale; she said she wasn’t feeling well. But her head was clear enough, even though she just sat there and stared at the film like she wasn’t really concentrating. But then when we were about to go to bed, she started falling apart, had an attack. I told you about them; she’d just stare straight ahead. And she was confused. Then when she fell asleep, she had one of her nightmare episodes where she totally flipped out.”
Trokic frowned. “And what about the next morning?”
“The worst was over with, but she seemed really uncomfortable, just in general. She didn’t eat breakfast with me, she took a shower instead. When I was about to go, she started acting strange again, and that’s when I told her she had to see a doctor. I insisted, I told her she had to.”
