The Glass Devil (15 page)

Stridner nodded. “That’s possible,” she said. She took off her glasses and tapped one of the rims lightly against her front teeth. “It was an execution,” she said.

Andersson replied, “Those Satanic stars and all that damn . . . drivel were meant to suggest a ritual murder. But it doesn’t really look like it. I mean . . . there aren’t signs of any sacrifices.”

“No. These are not ritualistic killings,” Stridner agreed.

“Have you seen any Satanic murders?” Andersson ventured to ask.

“Yes. One. The Purple Murder. I had just started here in Pathology. Are you familiar with the case?”

“Yes. I remember it, but I didn’t participate in the investigation.”

“Then I don’t need to go through the circumstances surrounding the case itself. The man was found dead in his apartment with his throat cut. But that’s not all. Someone had carved a pentagram on his stomach. It wasn’t very deep, but it had bled. The man was alive while the pentagram was being incised.”

“Could he have done it himself?” the superintendent interjected.

“No. It was very well done, with the points all being exactly the same size. You wouldn’t be able to do that to yourself. Not even if he had stood in front of a mirror. Besides, he was heavily drugged.”

“What kind of drug?”

“LSD, which actually is a drug commonly used during Satanic gatherings, I learned. I discussed this case a few years later with a colleague at a conference in Philadelphia who had experience with three ritualistic murders with connections to Satanism. Very interesting! It was two young children and a teenage girl who—”

Stridner stopped herself. “But it was the the Purple Murder we were discussing. So the man had taken LSD, or someone had forced him to take it. Because of the drug, he probably didn’t feel anything when the symbol was carved on his stomach. Aside from his throat being cut after the carving session, he also had five stab wounds in his body. The interesting thing about the stab wounds was that all of them were inflicted with the same knife, but not by the same person.”

Andersson raised his eyebrows in surprise. This last was news to him.

“I didn’t hear anything about that at the time. It was, after all, not my case, but you would think I would have heard something like that through the grapevine—”

“No. We chose not to spread it about, because the information wasn’t supported. Rather, it was only a hypothesis.”

“What did you base it on?”

“The man was alive when the pentagram was carved, and he was also alive when his throat was cut. The blood shot out in a cascade and he quickly bled to death then.

“The stab wounds on the body differed greatly. Two of them were only about a centimeter deep and located peripherally on his chest. One went straight to the heart and would have been fatal in and of itself, just as the fourth, a stab wound to the stomach which perforated the liver, would also have resulted in death. The last stab wound was, strangely enough, positioned directly above the pubic bone and slanted in toward the bladder. None of these knife wounds had bled much, which points to the fact that the man had been dead for a while before they were inflicted on him.”

“I seem to recall that evidence of sexual contact was also found. ...”

“Yes. We found vaginal secretions on his penis and sperm in his anus. So he had had sex with at least one man and one woman. If it had happened today, we could have done DNA profiles, but we didn’t have that back then.”

Stridner fell silent.

“You remember this case surprisingly well,” Andersson ventured to say.

She replied dryly, “Yes. It was a case that stays with you. Unusual.”

She straightened her glasses mechanically and looked down at the papers in front of her on the table. “The reason I started talking about that case is to justify my doubt that the killing of the Schyttelius family was a ritualistic Satanic murder. Firstly, we have the appearance of the crime scenes. No strange objects or utensils for Satanic rituals, only the symbols painted on the computers.”

“There was an upside-down cross in Mr. and Mrs. Schyttelius’s bedroom. . . .”

“Just to mislead. Nothing about the
bodies
pointed to ritualistic activities. They were simply executed in cold blood.”

Andersson nodded and admitted that she was right. These were thoughts he had had several times himself. “So if it wasn’t Satanists who murdered them, who was it?”

“A murderer without mercy. Familiar with guns and with a perfect aim. None of the victims were moved after the murders. He was sure they were dead.”

Andersson thought about what Stridner had said. “The strange thing,” he said, “is that the only ones familiar with firearms and who were expert marksmen, in the context of this investigation, are the victims, Sten and Jacob Schyttelius.”

IRENE HAD started preparing for her trip to London on Tuesday evening. She ironed her navy-blue linen pants and matching blazer. The new low-heeled dark-blue pumps would be perfect, but what could she wear under the blazer? After a great deal of agony, she decided to go for a light-purple sleeveless top with a deep V-neck. The time between checking in and boarding the plane would be spent in the airport shops. There she would try to find a new lipstick and a new perfume. Her mascara was almost out, and—

The door opened and Katarina stormed in. “Guess what.”

“Hello. What?”

“I’ve pulled out of the contest. I called the club where the final is being held on Saturday and said that I don’t have time for that beauty stuff.”

“What did they say?”

“They became, like, so angry. But I don’t give a damn. Those idiots can run their competition any way they want.” She disappeared into her room.

Why the quick change? Why didn’t her daughter need proof any more that she was pretty enough? Was it out of fear that she wouldn’t win? Or—?

Irene stopped her train of thought when she realized what the answer must be.

“What’s his name?” she called toward Katarina’s room.

Her daughter stuck her head through the door opening with a surprised look on her face. “He? How do you . . . ?” Then she broke into a sunny smile. “Johan.” She ducked back into her room. Irene smiled to herself, feeling like a very good detective.

A little while later, when she was considering the Schyttelius murders, that feeling evaporated like a dewdrop in the desert. What if her trip to London was unsuccessful? Maybe Rebecka really didn’t have the faintest idea about the motive for the murders or who the perpetrator might be. She hadn’t lived in Sweden the last couple of years. She hadn’t had close contact with her family. They hadn’t found any letters or postcards from Rebecka to either her parents or her brother.

Then a thought struck her: computers. They had each had access to a computer. Maybe they kept in touch through them. Sent E-mail or chatted. . . . But they would never be able to prove it, since the hard drives had been destroyed.

But maybe something had been saved on removable disks? Irene stopped herself. They hadn’t found a single removable disk, whether floppy diskette, Zip disk, CD/R, or any other kind, either at Sten’s or at Jacob’s. The investigators had assumed that they had stored everything only on the hard drives. But what if they hadn’t? What if the murderer had taken the removable disks with him? How do you utterly destroy such a disk? She suspected that the answer was probably different for each kind. She made a mental note to herself to find out first thing the next morning.

RIGHT AFTER morning prayers on Wednesday, the telephone in Irene’s office rang. She threw herself through the door and hurdled over the desk in order to catch it in time.

“Inspector Huss.” She could hear that someone was breathing heavily on the other end of the phone but trying to calm down.

“Hello? Who’s calling?” Irene asked.

She could hear the person at the other end clear his throat nervously. “Yes . . . I don’t know if I really should, but this is Assistant Pastor Urban Berg in Bäckared.”

“Good morning.”

“Good morning. I was wondering . . . it happens that I’ve found out about something which may have nothing to do with the murders, but one never knows. . . .”

“Do you want me to come and see you so that we can talk, or is it okay to do it via telephone?”

“No, . . . I’m coming into the city today anyway. . . . Can we meet this afternoon? I would prefer if no one finds out that I’ve spoken with you.”

“What time works best for you?”

“After two o’clock. Does that suit you?”

“Of course. Just announce yourself at the reception desk and they’ll call me. I’ll come down and meet you.”

“Thank you.” Relief could be heard in his voice.

What had Urban Berg found out that he couldn’t tell her over the phone? Maybe this was the first crack in the case they had all been hoping for? But that was probably wishful thinking, she told herself.

IRENE DEVOTED the entire morning to administrative cleanup. She was very pleased with her efforts when she looked out over her bare desktop before she went to lunch just before one o’clock. The Insurance Office’s cafeteria was offering an acceptable chicken stew.

She looked for Tommy both in the station and in the cafeteria, but she didn’t see him anywhere. The Speedy investigation was probably moving along, which was more than could be said for the one she was participating in. Since she hadn’t spoken with Urban Berg during the questioning a week earlier, it would have been good to learn Tommy’s impression of the pastor before she met him herself. The only thing she remembered was that Urban Berg had said that Bengt Måårdh was a womanizer. It may have been true: Bengt was a stylish man and had a pleasant manner about him. Maybe his manner was a little too pleasant.

Irene remembered that she had viewed Urban Berg as reserved during the brief glimpse she had gotten of him in the Fellowship Hall. And, according to Bengt Måårdh, he had problems with the bottle.

What was it Tommy had called both of the pastors? Now she remembered: “petty gossiping pigs.” They had tattled on each other. Probably because they were competing for the position of Schyttelius’s replacement as rector. Bengt Måårdh had also happened to reveal Jonas Burman’s possible homosexuality and that he saw himself as being extra religious and orthodox.

It was with a certain degree of anticipation that she took the elevator down to pick up Urban Berg. The receptionist announced him at two o’clock on the dot.

He stood glued to the wall of the waiting room right next to the bookshelf. The room didn’t offer many hiding places, but the pastor had found the one that existed. With a stiff facial expression, he focused on three dark-skinned men who were sitting on the visitor’s couch. He seemed to be slightly cross-eyed, since at the same time he was keeping an eye on a suspicious man who was sitting in an armchair and reading that day’s edition of
GP.
Irene could have informed Urban Berg that the man in the chair was a plainclothes prison guard who was waiting for someone. She didn’t bother. Instead, she opened the glass door and smiled welcomingly at the pastor. Relieved, Berg hurried toward her.

“I’VE BEEN going back and forth about what I should do . . . but I’ve decided to tell,” said Urban Berg.

He sat erect in Irene’s visitor’s chair and declined her offer of coffee. Irene left him for a moment while she retrieved a cup for herself. Based on what she could see when she came back, he hadn’t moved an inch.

Now he looked Irene in the eye and repeated, “I’ve decided to tell.”

He stopped himself. Irene drank her coffee and waited for him to begin.

“It was the Friday before the murders. Sten came over to my home in the afternoon, and we sat and talked. We had a very pleasant time and ate a little bit of food. Very pleasant. He said—”

There the assistant rector stopped and looked to the side. Irene got the feeling that he was terribly troubled. She wondered if she should ask how much they had had to drink, but decided that it was irrelevant. With the knowledge of both men’s drinking habits, it had probably been a good deal. Berg cleared his throat and commenced again. “He said that he suspected that Louise Måårdh had embezzled money from the church association.”

Irene was very surprised. Could Louise possibly have embezzled church funds? The beautiful, elegant . . . then Irene stopped herself and remembered the stunning pearl necklace and the exquisitely cut dress she had worn the week before. Irene had to admit that her impression of Louise also included the word “expensive.”

“Did he have any proof of his suspicions?”

Troubled, Urban Berg squirmed before he answered. “I . . . we talked about how Bengt and Louise bought a new car again. It hasn’t been more than three years since they bought a Volvo. Brand-spanking-new. Now they’ve purchased a BMW!” At the last piece of information, he opened his eyes wide, meaningfully. Apparently he viewed the BMW as clear proof of Mr. and Mrs. Måårdh’s deceit. At first he looked disappointed when Irene didn’t comment on the information, but after a short while his determination returned.

“Last winter they traveled to the Maldives, and last summer they were in Italy, and this summer they’re traveling to Greece. Their sons study at the university without taking out any student loans, and they each have an apartment. And then, they’ve bought a bigger boat which is docked at Björlanda Kile. Stuff like that costs money!”

He couldn’t conceal the triumph in his voice. Irene tried to choose her words carefully. “Did Sten Schyttelius suspect his accountant of embezzlement simply because of all of these expenses?”

A blush shot up from the pastor’s throat and spread unflatteringly over his pale cheeks. “He . . . he thought, as I do, that it’s very strange that they can afford all these things. Pastors in the Swedish Church are not well paid.”

“But he didn’t have any proof to base his suspicions on,” Irene asserted.

“Maybe not directly. But this has been discussed in the association for the last few years. According to Sten, we aren’t the only ones who have been curious.”

Irene watched the man sitting upright in her visitor’s chair. She was inclined to agree with Tommy; Urban Berg was a gossip-monger. Yet experience told her that a grain of truth can often be found in a rumor. Maybe it was worth pursuing. But someone else would have to do it; she was going to London.