One, Two ... He Is Coming for You (12 page)

She sniffed and dried her eyes with the back of her hands. “Sure.”

”Great.” I found a new page in my notebook. ”Tell me what you know.”

“Someone killed the prison pastor.”

I nodded and wrote it down. “Do you know his name?”

“Pastor Bertel … we called him… his last name was Lauritzen.”

I stopped and looked at her. I remembered the name from the picture
where Irene had written the names of the boys who raped her. I found the photo
in my pocket and read the name out loud.

“Bertel Due-Lauritzen?” I showed her the picture and she pointed at one
of the boys in the middle. Right behind Irene. Next to the handsome Bjorn
Clausen.

“Yes, it was him.”

“Do you know what happened to him?”

She shook her head heavily. “No. We found him on the floor in the church
when we came to clean as we always do after Sunday service.”

I wrote the details in my notebook.

“Could you tell what had killed him?”

She shook her head and started crying again. “No. It was like … he was …
there was blood everywhere. And his chest was ripped … like if a beast had …
and he was nailed to the floor.”

“Nailed?”

“Yes, a big cross had gone through his head. Through the skull,” she said
and put a finger to her head.

“It must have been a sharp cross?”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Of course you don’t.” I figured I would need ask Sune one more time to
get the autopsy report. I couldn’t figure out how a cross could go through a
skull.

“The man who did this is not human,” the woman said. “He can’t be.”

She was the second one to tell me that and I was beginning to think she
was right.

Sune was still moody when we got back at the newspaper. He downloaded the
pictures to the computer, while I wrote the article about the third killing. I
spoke to the police shortly after the cleaning lady, but they had no comments
as I  predicted. And as earlier, they wouldn’t say if they considered it
to be the same killer.

The question in my mind was: Did Denmark have its first serial killer?
There was no doubt in my mind that we did. So far he had killed three out of
the six people in the picture I had gotten from Irene. A fourth person had
supposedly killed himself. Could it be Gyldenlove who killed the others? Or
could it be Irene getting her revenge from the rape so many years ago? Or maybe
it was a third person seeking revenge for something the gang did back then. Or
maybe the last guy from the picture I had yet to meet? What was his name? I
looked at the back of the picture. Christian Junge-Larsen. Maybe it was about
time that I paid him a visit.

Sune got up from his seat and was about to leave, when I stopped him.

“I need you to do something for me,” I said.

“It’s Sunday. It’s going to cost you. I get paid by the hour, you know.
Weekends cost extra.”

“Actually it is going to cost the newspaper, but they won’t mind since
we are getting a lot of new readers because of this case.”

He sat down at his desk. “So what do you want from me?”

“First I need you to find Christian Junge-Larsen for me. The address and
where he works. Next I want more details on the killing of the prison pastor.
The autopsy report is not going to be ready until at least tomorrow, so we
can’t find that. But I am interested in knowing more about the cross. By now the
officers must have made at least a report of the killing and a description of
the crime scene. Could you try to find that?”

“Sure.”

I got up and poured both of us a cup of coffee. I placed his in front of
him. He didn’t even look at me.

“The kids are having a blast at my dad’s,” I said. “So don’t worry.”

Sune looked at me and smiled for the first time in hours. “I know they’re
fine.” His eyes went back to the screen.

“So what is the matter?”

He sighed. “Nothing. Just a little personal stuff. Could we leave it at
that?”

I nodded and looked out the window. It was still Sunday and the town of
Karrebaeksminde was sleepy. People stayed indoors, where they could keep warm.
Watching TV, playing cards or board games, and just relaxing and getting new
energy for the next week of work. The streets were empty. I only saw an elderly
man walking his dog. And all of a sudden it struck me. Wasn’t it my duty as a
reporter to tell people the truth? I had kept my knowledge hidden from them.
Out there in the normally quiet little kingdom was a killer on the loose. It
wasn’t three random killings as the police had told the public and wanted me to
write in the newspaper. Like they had said to all the other reporters. Not to
scare the public, yes I knew. But that was wrong. People were entitled to know
the truth. That we did in fact have a serial killer. A seriously dangerous
beast.

I sat down at my desk and made my decision. I was going to write the
truth in the morning paper. I was going to tell the public that the three
killings were related. That the victims had all known each other at the
boarding school.

22

“The cross looks like it was made of big iron spikes,” Sune said after a
while. I had just begun my new article and it was coming along nicely.

“Take a look,” he said and pointed at the screen.

I stood and went to his desk. I looked over his shoulder and saw a
picture taken at the scene.

“It looks like it was welded,” I said and pointed.

“Yes, it looks very homemade.”

“Like someone had taken two spikes and welded them together so it looks
like a real cross.”

“Exactly.”

“And the spikes are sharp on the end, so they could easily penetrate the
skull,” I said, thinking now all we had to do was to figure out who would have spikes
like these at their disposal. Maybe the killer worked with this kind of thing.

“So what do you think?” I asked Sune.

He shook his head. ”I really don’t know.”

”A welder?”

”Or someone who builds houses?” he suggested.

I nodded. That was a good idea. This kind of spike could be used to keep
panels or planks together. But the killer would also know how to weld. So they
were looking for a craftsman or a contractor of some kind. Not a nobleman like
Gyldenlove and probably not a woman like Irene.

“There was something else,” Sune said.

“Yes?”

“I got a little more information on Bjorn Clausen, the guy who killed
himself in 1987.”

I looked with interest at him.

“Well, according to the school archive, he was at the school on a
scholarship. It’s not something the boarding school normally does, but his
mother apparently knew the headmaster.”

“How do you know that?”

“I talked to him.”

”The headmaster?”

”Yes, I visited him. He’s in a nursing home now. Waiting to die. Sick
from some sort of cancer. Anyway he felt like confiding in me, and since his
wife had passed away long time ago, he said he thought it was about time to
tell someone.”

“I can’t believe you visited him without telling me.”

“I did it Friday after work. I thought it was a long shot, since he was
probably senile, but he wasn’t.”

“So what did he tell you?”

“That he had an affair with Bjorn Clausen’s mother. It lasted several
years. He loved her and he believed he might have been the father of her sons.
But she rejected that idea and he never did know if they were his kids.”

“Wow. That’s brutal.”

“I know. But he told me that he let Bjorn and his younger brother in on
a scholarship. It was a fictional scholarship, though. He had made it up and
paid for the boys out of his own pocket. He wanted them to have the very best
education they could get without anyone knowing the truth.”

“So Bjorn was a local boy who got accepted in the fine company of the
noble?”

“Precisely.”

”But that doesn’t explain why he killed himself.”

“No.
If
he killed himself,” Sune said.

I looked at him. We had discussed it earlier. Both of us couldn’t quite
get rid of the thought that maybe Bjorn Clausen was the killer’s first victim
back in 1987.

“What are you saying?”

He shook his head again. “I don’t know.”

“You must believe something, or you wouldn’t say it. I know that much about
you.”

“It is just that …It’s probably nothing.” Sune hesitated.

“What? You’re killing me here.”

“Well, it’s about the report the police made back then. The conductor’s statement
was a little strange, I think.”

“Why?”

Sune clicked the mouse a few times with his hand with only had three
fingers and found some documents he showed me.

“Look. In the first statement made on the scene the conductor of the
train says that Bjorn Clausen was already lying on the ground on the tracks
when he hit him with the train. But in the second one he states that Bjorn fell
from the bridge as the train came by and he hit him while he was in the air.
And if you look at where the body hit the train, Bjorn was pulled under the
train. The body didn’t hit the train on the way down from the bridge.”

“It was already on the tracks, like he said in the first statement.”

We were both quiet for a moment. We didn’t know exactly what this meant.

“I just know that if I was going to kill myself by jumping in front of a
train,” Sune said, “I would make sure to hit the train at full speed while in
the air so I would die quickly.”

“Well maybe he miscalculated. Maybe he jumped too soon and hit the
tracks first and then the train arrived.”

“That’s possible. As I said, I don’t know. I just found it odd.”

“It is odd and I don’t believe in coincidences. Either Bjorn Clausen was
killed by the same killer who is murdering right now or he killed himself
because of all the things they did back then. That’s my theory. I don’t know if
we will ever find out.”

As we sat there talking quietly, we sensed something was wrong. We
couldn’t put a finger on what it was until the editorial room suddenly was
filled with police officers. Men in uniform approached Sune. I got up.

”What the hell are you doing here?”

A voice answered in the doorway. I looked and saw Michael Oestergaard.

He too approached Sune.

“Sune Johanssen?”

Sune looked at me and I felt a shiver. It was my fault for pushing him
into hacking again. Oh my God. What had I done?

“You are under arrest for the murder of Pastor Bertel Due-Lauritzen
earlier today.”

My eyes wideness. What?

“Are you kidding me? He was with me all day.”

Detective Oestergaard looked at me. “Was he with you between 10:45 and 11:30
this morning?”

I went silent. We hadn’t met until three.

“But there is no way …”

The detective stopped me.

“As I said earlier this week, let us do the police work.”

I was so mad I could have punched him. But I kept my calm and quieted
down. While they took Sune away I yelled that I would take care of Tobias and
help him get out.

“Whatever it takes,” I said but I wasn’t so sure of anything anymore.

23

It was Sunday night so there really wasn’t much I could do to help Sune
until the morning. So I finished my article and sent it to my editor, who loved
it.

“This will sell a lot of newspapers,” he responded.

But it didn’t make me happy at all. Nothing could. I didn’t understand a
thing. How could the police think that Sune had anything to do with the murder
of that priest? He could never do a thing like that. Had everybody lost their
minds over night?

I went home promising myself that I would get Sune the best lawyer in
the country once I woke up. I had some money put away and could afford to help
him.

The kids were in bed but not yet asleep when I got home, so I got to
tuck them in. I love doing that. My dad had put an extra mattress on the floor
in Julie’s room. They were both smiling widely when I came in.

”We are having a sleepover,” Julie said.

“I know,” I said and smiled.

Tobias laughed. “I wanna do this every day,” he said and then Julie
laughed too.

Well that just might have to be the case, if they keep Sune
, I
thought. It was a good thing the two kids loved each other.

I read them a couple of books and finally they both fell asleep. Julie
was holding Tobias’ hand. As they both dozed off their hands slowly slipped out
of their grip.

I kissed my dad goodnight and he went to bed after a tiring day of
taking care of the kids.

So I was alone. Not something I had been good at lately. I felt sad and
sorry for Sune. I didn’t know what was going on or how to undo it. I had to try
to visit him tomorrow if he wasn’t released by then. They couldn’t keep him for
more than twenty-four hours without him seeing a judge. And by tomorrow they
would know they had made a mistake. Of course they would. Sune couldn’t kill
anyone. That was impossible.

I made myself some tea and sat in my dad’s favorite chair. No TV, no
kids, no anything. Just me and my hot cup of tea. I looked out in the dark and
thought about Giovanni when the phone rang.

“That didn’t last long,” I murmured but then I saw that it was him.

“Just the person I was thinking of,” I said as I answered.

It didn’t take him much effort to convince me to leave my tea and come to
his beach house. He said he wanted to see me. He missed me, and that was all I
had to hear. I really needed someone to talk to right now. Someone who would
listen and understand my frustration. And Giovanni was the best listener.

He smiled his bright smile when he opened the door and let me in. Always
the gentleman, he took my jacket and poured me a glass of red wine.