by Lena Bourne
“What’s happening?” Schmitt asks. “Explain it to me.”
I do so in as few words as I can, recounting everything that I found out this morning, and how it led to the bloodied man in Interview Room 5. An invisible clock is ticking very loudly in my head as I do.
“There are cameras on many of the buildings along the street where he grabbed her,” I say. “I checked as we walked. They’re on every intersection, or near enough. The recordings need to be accessed and searched. We’re looking for a white minivan with curtained windows.”
Schmitt is nodding.
“And Eva’s phone, it has to be tracked,” I say. “He sent me a text from it. Maybe he’s getting careless and sent it from wherever he’s holding her.”
“I doubt that,” Schmitt says, but snaps his mouth shut as I glare at him.
“And we need to move fast, you heard him, he’s not working alone,” I say. “His father is…”
What was I gonna say? Bleeding Eva as we speak? Gluing her wrists shut? Dressing her as Snow White? Raping her dead body?
I sway forward in my chair and almost throw up. I’m too late. Whatever I do now, it’ll already be too late. This is just another dead end. But the crash at the end of it will be the worst yet. It’ll be deadly.
“Are you well?” Schmitt asks, his voice betraying that he’s sure I’m not.
I straighten up, take a few deep breaths and stand up. “I’m all right. Let’s get to work.”
He nods. “We’ll start by checking the video footage and determine where he drove her to. We’ll go right now, on foot, you and me, we’ll view the videos as we go, and hopefully, we’ll find the place he took her to in time.”
He’s still over-talking to me, and doing so very calmly, which is a tactic I often use with distressed witnesses, victims, or relatives of the victims. It’s embarrassing to have it used on me, but it’s working. If I concentrate on his words and the plans he’s making, I can kinda-sorta see beyond the insurmountable wall of panic that’s crushed my ability to think straight and reason.
“Maybe we’re not too late,” Schmitt says. “If his father doesn’t know we arrested him, he might still be waiting for him.”
“All those people in reception taking photos,” I say, my heart racing again as I slam open the door. “They’ll be posting the photos all over social media.”
This time Schmitt doesn’t try to halt my mad dash across the open area, he’s barking orders to lock down the building, and he’s right behind me as I emerge into the hallway.
The four paramedics crowded around a gurney with our now-unconscious suspect, and the five officers surrounding them as they wait for the elevator, are taking up most of the space. I turn to the stairs, just as the elevator pings and the doors hiss open.
“No, don’t stop me!” an angry voice says. “I will be heard!”
Then a dwarf, barely taller than my waist, elbows his way through the crowd in front of the elevator. I’m no longer sure whether I’m hallucinating, dreaming, or I’ve lost my mind in the sick, twisted fairytale this psycho is weaving for me. But the dwarf does look very familiar.
29
Mark
The dwarf is looking up at me, his hooded dark brown eyes angry enough to make me think they’ll start shooting fire. He’s wearing some type of costume under his light blue-grey parka—coarse, brown homespun pants cinched at the ankles, a white cotton shirt, and a doublet embroidered with vines and leaves. There are two identical red spots on his cheekbones, and the red pouf of his hat is hanging out his jacket pocket.
“You’re investigating this serial killer, aren’t you?” he asks me. “This Fairytale Killer?”
He’s not much bigger than a ten-year-old, and I have to resist the urge to crouch down so we’re at eye level.
“Yes,” I say simply.
“I’ve been trying to talk to you for days,” he says. “My friends, well my colleagues were here a week ago for a special show we put on each year. They disappeared on the way to the airport. No one’s seen them since. Their families are frantic with worry, calling me all the time, but they can’t get anyone at the police station to take them seriously. There were seven of them. Seven dwarfs are missing.”
He puts a lot of emphasis on those last two phrases, but I figured it out before he got to that part. I think I knew it the first time I saw him, I just didn’t want to believe it.
Schmitt and I exchange a meaningful look. It’s not a surprise no one was available to talk to this dwarf. It’s been all hands on deck for catching The Fairytale Killer and a lot of things were going undone since the first of these last four bodies had turned up.
“He stages scenes for fairytales, doesn’t he?” the dwarf asks, some of the fire gone from his voice. His eyes are unsure, but defiant too, like he’s afraid we’re going to start laughing at him. I’ve never been less inclined to laugh at anything in my life. “He needs seven dwarfs for Snow White.”
“Come with us,” Schmitt says, laying a hand on the dwarf’s shoulder. “We’ll talk somewhere more private.”
He leads him into the first room that’s open and empty and shuts the door firmly.
“I’m Detective Schmitt and this is Major Novak of the US Army,” he says. “And yes, we are trying to catch the serial killer known as The Fairytale Killer. I am sorry you weren’t listened to. We have been very busy.”
“Please tell us everything you know,” I say. “And as quickly as you can.”
The dwarf sits in the chair Schmitt pulled out for him, then shrugs off his jacket, baring his shoulders. “So, this troop of dwarfs, they’re from Ontario, Canada, and they were here at my invitation. Their flight back was last Friday evening.”
“How were they traveling to the airport?” Schmitt asks, interrupting him. “Taxi? The train?”
“I was going to order them a ride from one of those private shuttle services that specialize in airport transports. We were talking about it in the lobby of their hotel and a man overheard us. Said he offered such services and that he could pick them up. Quoted a great rate, and they accepted.”
“Was it the man the paramedics were working on out in the hall just now?” I ask.
“What man?” the dwarf asks.
I pull out the composite sketch.
He looks at it. “It might’ve been, I don’t know. He had a baseball cap on, pulled low over his eyes. He was big and broad though. Kind of scary looking. But he spoke perfect English and I think that set them at ease. He even joked with them for a while, saying he knew of a couple of party spots he could take them to before their flight, to tire them out for the long journey. More than a few were ready to take him up on the offer. But I don’t know if they did. I said my goodbyes and didn’t hear from them again until their families started contacting me a couple of days later.”
Schmitt is already holding his phone in his hand, ready to start issuing orders. “Which hotel was it?”
“The Alexanderplatz Holiday Inn,” the dwarf says.
Schmitt thanks the dwarf, then tells him someone is going to come and take his statement again.
“Do you think they’re still alive?” the dwarf asks.
Both Schmitt and I look at him, neither of us answering. I’m hoping Schmitt will say something soothing, and he’s probably hoping I will.
“It’s our hope we’ll find them in time,” Schmitt finally says, and he’s speaking about Eva too, I know it, just as I know I wouldn’t be able to speak without unraveling again. I can’t unravel. I need to do what I can to find Eva while there’s still hope. I can unravel once that’s gone.
Most of the cameras filming the street where Eva was taken either didn’t work, didn’t record, or were so grainy not much was visible. We did find one that clearly showed the man—our suspect-lifting her in the front seat of a white minivan. But the image was so grainy, reading a license plate off it was a pipe dream. The best image enhancement program wouldn’t have helped with that.
Our ne
xt stop was the Holiday Inn where a young, black-haired manager gave us nearly fifteen minutes of grief about needing court orders and warrants and whatnot before she could show us the security camera footage. She wore too much cloyingly sweet perfume and was so done up, her makeup, hair, and clothes all perfect, I’m sure she spends all the hours when she’s not at work making herself look good. Eventually, she relented and let us view the footage.
And it was pure gold.
The indoor shots were grainy, but I could clearly see the suspect talking to a group of dwarfs, none taller than his waist. This was the event the dwarf at the police station described.
The next day, just before noon, the group of dwarfs checked out. Then, at noon precisely, they filed through the lobby, carrying their suitcases, and disappeared through the revolving doors onto the street.
The cameras outside are of much better quality than the ones in the lobby. The white minivan was clearly visible as it waited for them at the curb. As was the man, our suspect, helping them put their suitcases in the bag. The vehicle tag was clear too. Or at least a part of it. Local.
It was more than I hoped for. But I’m not sure it’s enough.
We’ve been in the circular main room of the ultra-modern computer crime lab, which is located just a few blocks from the police HQ building. A huge screen, at least four by four meters in size dominates one side of the room. The desks with computers are all facing it and there have to be at least several workstations in there. Leave it to the Germans to do everything to the highest standard of utmost efficiency. Which includes their traffic camera system.
They were able to pick up the white minivan leaving the Holiday Inn and trace it all the way out of the city heading north. But he didn’t get on the autobahn. He headed down a regional road, with no cameras.
I almost lost all hope right then, until one of the techs came up with the bright idea to check the service station cameras along that road, if there were any. There was one. The minivan passed it at just before two PM. By then it was in a rural area where there is only a few houses, not even proper villages and a couple of farms. Still too many places to search.
But we’re going to search them.
I had them check the footage from the service station on the night Eva was taken too. One of them showed a white minivan passing at around eight PM. There was no way to read the tags on it, but I’m sure it’s the same car.
I step away from the screen for some privacy and call Blackman. He’s proven his worth deducing things right from just looking at maps, and I’m as close to praying he can do it again as I’ve ever been. The phone in the room he’s using as his office rings and rings until I’m sure he’s not going to pick up. But he does.
“We have a very promising lead on the place where the killer might be holding his victims,” I tell him. “But it’s still an area of about twenty square kilometers and we need to narrow it down.”
“That’s a huge area,” he says. “Where is it?”
“A rural area about an hour to the north of Berlin city limits,” I tell him. “Not that many houses, but a few large farmsteads. I want to narrow it down as much as I can before we go out there and start knocking on doors.”
“Yes, that’s a good idea,” he says. “Where is it?”
I tell him everything I know, then ask him to get Marisa on board to help him set up the topographical satellite map of the area. She can’t access all the information from there, but she’s a resourceful young woman and a computer whiz. She’ll do all she can.
When I return to the large screen, it’s already showing the map, with bright white spots indicating houses.
“How do we narrow this down?” Schmitt asks. A tech is standing next to him, a short man with a shaved head, wearing round John Lennon-type glasses.
He was talking to him, I think, but I answer, “First we eliminate all the houses and farms that are occupied and have been occupied for the past five years.”
I doubt this killer started operating that long ago, but we might need to widen that bracket if I’m wrong.
The tech is nodding, jotting it down.
“Then we eliminate any areas where the houses are clustered together,” I continue. “This guy doesn’t want witnesses.”
“And then what?” the tech asks.
“If we’re lucky, this will leave us with only a few places to search,” I say. “You do have access to the kind of databases you need to check this stuff in, don’t you?”
The tech looks at me like I’m soft in the head. “Yes, we have access to every database.”
“Good, get to it please,” Schmitt tells him.
There were ten people on duty when we came in, but more have been called in and there are now thirty of them looking up the information we need.
I wait by the screen, my arms folded over my chest, studying the satellite map and watching as clusters of houses get crossed out by big, red digital crosses as the techs eliminate them. I hate this part. I hate this waiting.
I want to be out there, going door to door, looking for Eva, not standing here at a map of where she might not even be. But this is my last shot at finding her alive. There won’t be any more chances after this one. I know it in my bones and I can’t even move, because that might cause a cascade of other movements that’ll lead to me going out there and lumbering around, asking for her in all the wrong places, alerting the psycho in the process. I cannot screw this up.
Two hours later, the map shows only four possible places where The Fairytale Killer’s lair could be. The techs could find detailed photos of only three of them. Abandoned farms all, uninhabited for a decade or more, each sprawled over several hectares of land with many buildings to search.
“I say we visit them all at the same time,” Schmitt suggests.
“We’ll be seen coming from far away,” I say.
The big screen is now sectioned off into four squares, each showing one of the locations. Three are showing pictures of the farm buildings overlaid over the map, while the fourth just shows the map, an old photo of a huge orchard, and a long winding road snaking from the main road to the white dots that are the buildings of the farm. We have no idea what those are since the techs could find no recent pictures of it. The three we do have pictures of are all huge, multi-structure complexes. Two of them have smaller houses too, which could’ve been places for housing seasonal workers, or maybe the houses where other family members or permanent workers lived. I don’t know much about farm life, but given how far from any town these places are, I’m guessing most of the staff lived on-site. And given the size of the land, staff size must’ve been considerable. Two of the places were chicken farms, one was a cattle farm, and the last, the one with no recent pictures, specialized in apple production before it failed some thirty years ago. That’s the smallest of the lot, comprised of only three buildings and the one farthest away from the main road. That’s the one I’ve picked to visit first.
My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I excuse myself to go take the call. It’s the base and I’m hoping they’ve found something I have not.
“Major Novak,” Blackman says. “I have here the file of General Wallace Parcivall. Why have you requested this?”
He’s speaking in a terse monotone voice, but I feel a seething of great anger underneath it. He wasn’t supposed to know about the file. It was cleared for my eyes only.
“A connection to our case came up, and I decided to follow it up,” I say. “It could be nothing.”
“And it could be everything,” Blackman says. “I investigated Parcivall more than fifteen years ago, in connection to the allegations that he was mistreating his children. I found he was torturing them. I also found compelling evidence that he murdered his wife. The man should’ve been locked up. Instead, the Army covered it all up. Returned the children to him and pretended all I found out was conjecture. That is the reason I resigned. It is the reason I refused to come on board for this case when Major-General Thompson first as
ked me six months ago.”
I can hear the years of living with this frustration, of having to bottle it all up and watch the man he knew to be guilty as sin parade around as a free man.
“His daughter lost her mind in her teens and had to be institutionalized because of the abuse,” Blackman says. “His son ran away and hid. He lived a very hard life on the streets for years. A life of crime. Their father was extolled a hero of the nation. Praised, esteemed, and highly decorated. It made me sick, but there was nothing I could do to prevent it. I tried everything. Those poor children. They only had me to speak for them and I failed them.”
He’s speaking like he’s explaining it to me, looking for my forgiveness. In my twelve years as a CID Special Investigator, I’ve never had a case where the man or woman I found to be guilty of a crime went unpunished in the higher interest of the US Military, as was clearly the case here. If that had happened to me, I’d probably sound just as devastated and slightly mad with grief and the injustice of it all as he sounds right now.
“Do you think the children could be behind these killings?” I ask.
“The daughter, Rebecca, poor thing, killed herself almost two years ago. Her psychiatrists at the home she was in thought she was getting better and gave her more freedom. She cut her wrists with a razor she bought on her first unsupervised outing. Her body was found by a creek, two days after she left the institution for an hour in town.”
She cut her wrists and bled out. The pieces of this puzzle are starting to fit.
“We have the son,” I tell him. “He’s at the hospital now, badly hurt, because the father of one of the dead women got to him first. The only thing he told us was that his father will carry out the killing without him.”
