by Inger Wolf
“Odd looking. But they’re beautiful.”
“There’s a man who owns a small vineyard just outside of Makarska, down by the sea. Several years ago, business was bad, all the small vineyards were being gobbled up by the large wine producers, but he refused to sell, even though he could barely make ends meet. Then one day, he got an idea. His wife’s a glassblower, and she started making the bottles instead of using the usual boring ones. So now, they work together. Every day he loads up his little wagon and takes twenty or thirty bottles of wine into town to sell to tourists. They go like hotcakes, and everybody’s happy. Now they’ve expanded; they’ve trained another glassblower. You can buy Croatian aquavit and homemade marmalade from his wagon now.”
“Is the wine any good?”
“Just average, but then you have something really nice to look at while you drink it.”
Trokic carried the dirty dishes into the kitchen. He heard Jasper yelling in the living room. “Yes! Now we got that dirty son of a bitch.”
“Who?”
Jasper couldn’t contain himself. “Dennis Nikolajsen. Forensics just sent the results a minute ago. The blood on the wall is Maja Nielsen’s, as we thought, but there were also a few drops on the sofa that Copenhagen took samples of. They checked the DNA records, and it so happens Nikolajsen is in there, from when he was convicted. And guess whose blood it is. We’re on the way out to pick him up right now. This time, he’s got some serious explaining to do.”
Monday, May 11
Chapter Forty-Four
Nikolajsen waited in detention while Trokic sorted through a complaint. They’d called a dead man’s number, and it hadn’t turned out well at all. Specifically, they had mixed up two names and called a widow by mistake, accusing her of being an accomplice of a mentally deranged criminal who had escaped from a psychiatric hospital. The officers, acting in good faith, had given her a rough time until they realized the mistake.
Now, the complaint stared up at Trokic from his desk. He pushed it aside in annoyance and wished for the millionth time that Agersund would return to his perch and take this godforsaken responsibility from him. Most of all, he saw no way he would be able to work with the department’s captain. It was hard to take seriously a man with the voice of a sparrow, whose favorite expression was, “A-OK and all systems go.”
He reread his notes on the interrogation of Dennis Nikolajsen. Still, no message from Christiane, he saw. Why not? Maybe she was out partying with some of her neo-hippie friends and had forgotten all about him. He was tempted to text her, just a few words. He could ask if she made it home okay yesterday. But instead, he laid his phone down.
Jasper walked in. “Nikolajsen will be here in a minute. Are you ready?”
Trokic nodded.
“How did the Colombian’s autopsy go, by the way?”
“All I have is a preliminary report Bach sent over this morning. He was shot three times in the head with a semi-automatic weapon, probably 10 mm. Hollow points. Massive trauma. In other words, his face and brains were blown to bits. Or as Bach puts it, a nasty case. He says it was from close range with a ragged entrance wound. We’re talking about a regular execution here. Probably with a silencer since no one heard a sound.”
“What about the shells?”
“We’ve only found one at the crime scene; the killer probably picked the rest of them up. One of the bullets was still in the victim’s brain, and we dug two others out of the wall behind him. Forensics is having a look at them. We’re expecting a ballistics report that will pin down the exact type of weapon.”
Jasper looked annoyed. “But does it have anything to do with our case?”
“I don’t think so. The MO is completely different. It looks like drugs to me. Maybe he ripped somebody off. But it does mean that our connection is gone. We know where the drug came from, but he’s taking everything else with him to his grave.”
If possible, Dennis Nikolajsen seemed even more cowed than the last time they’d seen him. Jasper looked ready, as focused as a Mikado player about to pick up the first stick. It was hot in the office, and the only sound was a wasp buzzing around at the window.
“Seems like you keep showing up on our radar,” Jasper said. “And this time you have serious problems.”
“What the hell are you talking about? I’ve explained everything to you for chrissake.”
“We don’t think so. You see, we have technicians who took several samples of blood we found in Maja’s apartment. That ring any bells for you?”
Nikolajsen shook his head defiantly, his longish hair whipping across his face, but his voice was almost inaudible. “I don’t know anything about that.”
“Yes, you do,” Trokic said. “Fortunately, our technicians took samples from several spots on the wall. There could have been a fight in the room. And guess what, they found your blood, and that connects you with the killing. So, why don’t you start at the very beginning and tell us everything that happened.”
Nikolajsen’s voice was trembling now. “It’s not what you think. She sounded strange on the phone the last time we talked, so I went over there.”
“Let’s get everything straight,” Trokic said. “When did this happen?”
“The night before she died.”
“And you wanted to talk to her about what, exactly?”
“About her sounding so strange and feeling so bad.”
“But earlier, you admitted you were jealous, really jealous. You didn’t have an ulterior motive to go over there?”
Silence. Nikolajsen was grinding his teeth with locked jaws. His thoughts were obviously darting around at supersonic speed.
“Come on!” Jasper snapped at him. “Weren’t you jealous? Didn’t you want her back?”
“Yeah.”
“So, we agree, that’s why you went over there?”
“Yeah.”
“And then what happened?”
“She didn’t open her door, so I just walked in. The apartment was like a pigsty; it stunk like hell. And then I went into the living room and got a real shock. There were scraps of paper all over the table, and Maja was over in the corner, cutting herself. I yelled at her, told her to stop, but she just stared at me like I wasn’t even there.”
Nikolajsen shivered, almost as if he were freezing. “So, anyway, I flew over there and tried to take the razor blade away from her, but she just went wild, she swung at me. And that’s what happened. She got me in the arm, right here.”
He rolled his shirtsleeve up and showed them a long, reddish wound on his upper arm. Slightly infected.
“I managed to get the razor blade away from her, then I went out to the bathroom and tore the place apart looking for bandages for both of us.”
Trokic thought about the mess the apartment had been in when they arrived. His story might be plausible. Might be. “Did she get cut while you were struggling with her?”
Nikolajsen nodded. “Yeah, I think the side of her arm got cut, right when I got the razor blade out of her hand, when she was fighting to get it back.”
“And you found a bandage, you say?”
“Yeah, finally, and I put it on her. By then, she’d settled down. She was just sitting there on the sofa. But then, when I was putting it on, she suddenly looked up and asked me why I’d cut her. And I got really scared. I tried to tell her she did it herself, but then she went crazy again, told me to get out of there. I begged her, I mean begged, to get somebody to come over and stay with her. She wouldn’t do it. So, I stuck around for a few hours, then finally she seemed okay again. We checked her cuts, and they didn’t look like they needed stitches, so I just cleaned them and put a new bandage on. Then she wanted me to leave, and I did.”
“She didn’t have any bandages on when we found her,” Trokic said.
“She must’ve taken them off.”
“Maybe. But why didn’t you call a doctor?”
Nikolajsen buried his face in his hands. For a moment, Trokic thought he was going
to break down, but then he raised his head.
“I’ve asked myself that every single day since then. It feels like it’s my fault she died.”
“What happened then?” Obviously, Jasper wasn’t buying the young man’s story. “Didn’t you make her go with you? Down to your car, down to the harbor? You came up with the idea while you were working down there, I’m assuming.”
“Nothing more happened,” Nikolajsen said; he was desperate now. “I went home, and I haven’t been in that part of the harbor where Maja died.”
”That’s not what we think,” Trokic said. ”Your car is being examined, and we count on finding Maja’s DNA somewhere inside. Not to mention some evidence of running over Anja Mikkelsen. Because we’re certain the two cases are connected.”
Nikolajsen let out a long breath. ”You won’t find anything. She hasn’t been in my car. And I didn’t have anything to do with that animal rights activist. I don’t even know who she is.”
They sat for a few moments, trying to read each other’s minds.
”It must’ve been hard dragging her all the way up to the seventh floor,” Jasper finally said.
”But I didn’t do it, for chrissake.”
”Like hell you didn’t. All we need is to get the details straight.”
”Listen,” Trokic said. ”You can say you didn’t do it as much as you want, but the thing is, we have enough technical evidence to put you behind bars for a long, long time. The best way to help yourself is confess.”
Nikolajsen shook his head. He looked wretched. ”You’ve got to believe me.”
Chapter Forty-Five
It was quiet in the hospital room when Lisa walked in. Anja Mikkelsen’s mother, Henny, sat beside Anja’s bed; she looked like she hadn’t eaten in days. Her graying hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail, and her nails were bit to the quick. Anja looked about the same as the last time Lisa had seen her, and she was still surrounded by machinery, but the bandage around her head had been removed. Now she was just some pale creature, asleep.
”My husband is already back at work,” Henny said, after Lisa introduced herself. ”He’s a forest manager, he says he needs to be outdoors. He can’t stand sitting here waiting for what might be worse than death.”
Lisa nodded sympathetically. She found a chair behind the door and carried it over. ”I’m sure your husband’s reaction is normal. This is a difficult time to get through. Do the doctors have anything new to say?”
”No, not really, she’s only a little bit better. She’s just lying here. But her condition is stable, her heart is strong, and she’s breathing by herself now.”
”It has to be difficult.”
”We wanted to move,” Anja’s mother said. ”Our other two children have moved away from home, so we don’t need to live in town any longer. We wanted to make a fresh start somewhere else. They say it’s nice living on Samsø. We could keep a few animals. But now we can’t leave. Even if Anja comes out of her coma, she almost certainly will need help the rest of her life. She had so much to fight for, and now she’s been robbed of what gave her life meaning.”
Lisa sat with her hands in her lap, waiting patiently for the woman to settle herself. A few moments later, she said, ”Can you think of any connection between Anja and Maja Nielsen, the girl found dead in Town Hall Park?”
”Two officers asked me that same question a few days ago.”
”I know. But I’m wondering if you might have thought of anything in the meantime.”
”I would’ve called if I had. I can’t see any reason why they should have known each other. We’ve been living in Brabrand forever, so they definitely didn’t go to school together. And Anja is three years older. They never lived close to each other, and no one in our family knows anyone in theirs. There’s simply nothing that connects them. Except for the horses, that is.”
Lisa laid her notebook in her lap as her heart began to pound. ”What about the horses?” An image of a young Maja sitting inside a greenhouse in riding clothes flashed in her head. Finally, here was the connection, she was sure of it, only it had never been mentioned. Somebody hadn’t thought it was important.
”Anja went to a type of riding school, it was more a farm than anything, just outside Sabro. When she was a young girl. I guess they might have met there and got to know each other. It’s not so far from where Maja lived.”
”Maja was at that farm too. And she did live in Sabro when she was a child.”
”Well then, there you have it.” Henny sounded happier now. ”But that officer I talked to the other day, the one with the high forehead, nervous hands, he just shook his head and said they had to go.”
”Morten Lind?”
”Yes, I think so, that was one of them.”
Lisa bit her lip in anger. It was typical of Lind to do something like that, ignore information of no immediate use he could see. He’d written it off as irrelevant. But even the slightest hint about where the two girls could have met should have been in a report.
”That was also around the time Anja became interested in animal welfare.”
Her mother swallowed and wrung her hands. ”Something went on at that farm once. A horse was mistreated. She talked a lot about it, but I don’t remember just what happened. It was back when she was seeing Martin. She broke it off with him afterwards.”
Lisa stared at her. ”Martin? Do you remember his last name?”
”Isaksen, I believe. It didn’t last long between them. I’m fairly certain he was the big brother of one of the girls Anja was riding with. But do you think all this could have something to do with animal abuse?”
Lisa kept staring at the woman, shaken now. ”I’m not sure yet just how everything is connected.”
She spoke slowly, but her thoughts were racing. Why had Maja been found alone in a greenhouse back then, all bloodied up? Was it actually possible that the case had something to do with animal abuse? And was it really the same Martin who later hooked up with Maja?
”As I said, it was back when Anja started taking an interest in animals. She’d always been fond of horses and her own pets, but she got more fanatical. From one day to the next. I remember clearly the evening she said she was done eating meat, that it made her nauseous. And that every time she thought about it, she also thought about animals that had been stuffed.”
”Stuffed animals?” Lisa was bewildered.
”Yes. It sounded strange to me, too, we never had any in the house. I can’t think of anything else at the moment.”
Lisa stood up. The blood on Maja’s clothes. Something had happened, and Anja had contacted Maja’s killer. Maybe Martin Isaksen. His photo had been in the newspapers. Possibly she’d remembered him and came to some sort of conclusion. But Lisa had no idea of what Anja had known.
”Thank you for talking to me. Here’s my card if you need to talk, or if you happen to remember something else. I have to go.”
Chapter Forty-Six
Trokic stuck his phone in his pocket and stared at the car wash in front of him. Thoughts began whirling in his head.
Taurup was standing beside him. ”The paint job on your Civitch is already dull, and it’s only two years old. You need to wax it. You know, the Sunday afternoon in the suburbs thing, wax on your cloth, rub it on. We really need to get back and have another go at Nikolajsen. Or maybe you’re getting an undercoating too?”
Trokic was still thinking. Lisa had called to tell him that Martin Isaksen had known both Maja and Anja from a riding school they’d gone to when they were girls. It was the connection they’d been looking for. Martin had even had a short-lived relationship with Anja. Could he have abused her? Was that what she’d known about Martin?
”That was Kornelius on the phone.”
The bad feeling he’d had when he hung up was still with him. ”She thinks Martin Isaksen might have killed Maja and ran over Anja.”
”Why does she think that, and what difference does it make now? We’ve got Nikolajsen in custo
dy, and he’s got blood on his hands.”
”She talked to Anja’s mother. The problem is, it all sounds a little vague. She’s going to dig around some more. She mentioned something about stuffed animals, the trophy kind. I didn’t catch just why she thought that was so important.”
”Hold on here, how does all this fit in? That was a long time ago.”
”I don’t know what happened. But I want Martin Isaksen brought in again. You handle that, and I’ll go out to that horse farm with Kornelius and see what we can come up with.”
”But Dennis Nikolajsen has the motive. And it’s not from eight years ago.” Taurup wasn’t about to let the man he believed to be the killer off the hook.
”We can’t tie him to Anja Mikkelsen.”
They waited while the car wash dried his car.
”Something else is bothering you,” Jasper said. ”You’ve been spacey since yesterday.”
Trokic sighed. ”We found my cousin Sinka.”
”What, the one who disappeared?”
”Yeah. It’s a long story. But the short version is, we haven’t seen her for many years, and now all of a sudden she’s showed up. She has my phone number.”
”Has she called?”
”Not yet.”
”Are you scared she won’t call?”
Trokic shrugged and scratched his black hair. He wasn’t comfortable talking about this. ”Sinka was raped during the war and got pregnant. She chose not to come back to us.”
”It has to be pretty intense to deal with being violated like that. It’s easier to forget it.”
Normally they didn’t discuss personal matters like this, and they both looked trapped. Trokic thought about her for a moment; Sinka had been the first person he’d ever confided in.
”And I’m wondering how this is going to affect Jacob and Lisa when it gets out. He was really hooked on Sinka.
Taurup nodded thoughtfully. ”Lisa told me once that all this about the girl, about Sinka, was like having a ghost around twenty-four seven, that their relationship wasn’t a hundred percent because of it.”
