Postcard killers Read online

  Instinctively she thrust the picture away from her eyes.

  There were people there, two of them.

  The evidence seemed to suggest that they were no longer alive.

  "Do you real y think that's an imitation of a work of art?" the Dane asked.

  "Impossible to say," Dessie muttered.

  She pushed the terrible picture away and began to run through Denmark's most famous works of art in her mind.

  The Little Mermaid, the statue in Copenhagen's harbor, was obviously the best known. But there were the artists of the Skagen School, the cubist Vilhelm Lundstrom, and plenty more.

  She pushed the stray hairs away from her brow. A lot of the other photographs had been very easy to trace back to various artworks, usual y wel known ones.

  This wasn't one of them, was it? Something had changed.

  "I don't think it was the same photographer," she said to Nils Thorsen.

  "So who took this picture?"

  Chapter 101

  Los Angeles, USA

  "Hey, sleepyhead, you still alive?"

  Jacob slowly opened his eyes without the faintest idea of where he was.

  He examined the clues.

  A ceiling with a large damp stain.

  The rattle of an exhausted air-conditioning unit.

  A sharp smel of coffee, a smel he hadn't woken up to for the past six months.

  "Ah, there you are. It lives. It snores. I've got some more information for you."

  Jacob sat up on Lyndon Crebbs's lumpy living-room sofa. It had been insignificantly more comfortable than the recliner on the flight across the Atlantic.

  The FBI agent held out a mug of steaming coffee.

  "I've got the name of the guardian who took care of the Rudolph kids 134 after their parents died," he said. "Jonathan Blython, a cousin of the mother's, also a resident of Santa Barbara."

  Jacob took the mug, had a sip, and immediately scalded himself.

  "Excel ent job," he said. "Do you think he'd appreciate an informal visit?"

  "Hardly," Lyndon said. "He's been dead three years."

  Jacob snapped awake.

  "A sudden and violent death?"

  Lyndon nodded.

  "He was found with his throat cut. Parking lot over on Vista del Mar Street. He'd been with a prostitute. It was written off as a violent mugging. No arrest."

  "Three years ago, you say?"

  "The twins had just turned twenty-one. They were living here in L.A. No one connected them to the murder. Why would they?"

  Jacob drank the bitter liquid and fumbled for his trousers. They'd slid beneath the sofa. Suddenly he remembered his night with Dessie. He put it out of his mind.

  "I think I'm going to head out to Montecito," he said, pul ing his jeans on.

  "How far is it?"

  "A hundred miles or so, a bit less. You'l be there in two hours if you miss rush hour. But -"

  Lyndon Crebbs placed a heavy hand on his shoulder.

  "First you're going to take a shower," he said.

  Chapter 102

  Copenhagen, Denmark

  The crime scene was a hotel close to the Central Station.

  The hotel looked like it had been built in the 1930s. It was three stories and pretty basic, not to say shabby. It fit the pattern for the kil ers – before the Grand Hotel murders, anyway.

  Dessie and Nils Thorsen arrived at the same time as one of the officers from the forensics team.

  "We'l help you carry your equipment up," Thorsen said to them. This was met with wide eyes but no word of protest. Dessie was impressed with Thorsen's sly move.

  They were waved past the cordon by the uniforms whose job it was to keep the press and public away.

  The murders had been committed in a double room on the top floor.

  There were no security cameras in the corridors, Dessie noted. The kil ers' old pattern.

  Two of the forensics officer's col eagues had already started examining the room. It was harshly lit by various lamps, and Dessie could tel from the 135 smel that the bodies were stil there. Several detectives were walking around the room with notepads or cameras in their hands.

  Dessie came to a halt just outside the door. She stood on tiptoe to see past one of the plainclothes officers, and when he leaned over, she got a clear view of the bed.

  She gasped, couldn't help herself. The scene was beyond horrifying.

  The man's genitals had been cut off and stuffed in his mouth.

  The woman's stomach had been cut open and her guts laid out between her legs. She had an empty champagne bottle rammed down her throat.

  Dessie turned away and grabbed at the wal for support.

  "What is it?" Nils Thorsen asked.

  "See for yourself," she said, stepping aside to let him through. "Although I advise against it."

  Thorsen gulped for air and let out a noise that sounded like he was retching. He staggered back along the corridor.

  Dessie moved to the door. She vividly recal ed the scene in the house on Dalaro.

  The similarities were striking.

  Two dead bodies, a man and a woman, their throats cut.

  But there were differences, too.

  She hadn't thought it possible, but this scene was even more revolting. It was rougher and more graphic.

  "What nationality are they?" someone from the forensics team asked.

  "American," the senior detective said. "From Tucson, Arizona. Anna and Eric Hel er, newlyweds. Here on their honeymoon."

  Dessie's desire to throw up grew stronger. Her mind was working very fast. The similarities were undeniable, but there was also something different about this scene.

  Nothing suggested that the bodies had been arranged in a particular way.

  The couple lay splayed on the bed without any apparent attention to their position, as if they had been thrown there, or had even just fal en asleep that way.

  This was no Little Mermaid. Nothing from the Skagen school either. No famous art.

  She took out her mobile and cal ed Gabriel a.

  The detective grunted in answer.

  "Are Sylvia and Malcolm stil at the Grand Hotel?" Dessie asked.

  "They haven't left their suite."

  "You're quite sure?"

  "The entire hotel is besieged by the press. The Rudolphs can't move without the whole world knowing about it. Andrea Friederichs is busy sel ing the rights to the whole circus to the highest bidder. You know, 'Based on a true story…'"

  Dessie closed her eyes. She massaged her forehead with one hand.

  "You've heard about Copenhagen?" she said.

  "Grisly from what I've heard," Gabriel a said.

  "This is different," Dessie said. "Even more disgusting. I don't think it was the same kil ers. This was someone different."

  There were a few moments of silence from the other end.

  "Or else it was never actual y the Rudolphs," Gabriel a said.

  Dessie couldn't think of a response.

  "You have to consider that Jacob might be wrong," Gabriel a said.

  "Everything we find is pointing to the fact that Sylvia and Malcolm are innocent."

  Yes, she was perfectly aware of that.

  "They might just have been incredibly unlucky," Gabriel a went on.

  "They might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or else someone real y is trying to set them up."

  Dessie moved to one side to let the ambulance crew through with their stretchers.

  "Or else they're guilty," Dessie said, "and now someone else is mimicking their murders in almost the same way, just not as wel thought through."

  "And this 'someone else,'" Gabriel a said. "Who might that be?"

  Chapter 103

  Montecito, USA

  The directions Jacob had been given led him to a huge gate at the end of a paved private road.

  A tarnished bronze sign revealed that this was THE MANSION, with a very definite capital M.

  No false modesty
here.

  Jacob sat in his car for a moment studying the surroundings.

  While he had been cruising the streets of Montecito, he realized that this whole area was a playground for the wealthy and famous. Many of the houses were showy mansions built in a faux Mediterranean-style, with ornate gates and colorful bougainvil ea.

  This one was different, though.

  The wal s were several feet high, unwelcoming, granite gray. They stretched as far as he could see up toward the hil s. They protected the house and grounds so wel that he had no idea what might be on the other side.

  The Mansion, my ass. More like the Fortress. To protect what secrets?

  He got out of the car and went up to the phone to the left of the gate.

  "Si?" a crackling voice said.

  So it wasn't entirely uninhabited.

  "Hola," Jacob said. "Speak English?" He had many good qualities, but a 137 talent for languages wasn't one of them.

  "Si. Yes."

  "Jacob Kanon, NYPD. New York City police. I'd like to ask a few questions about the Rudolph family. It's important that I speak to someone."

  "Can you hold your ID up to the camera beside the phone?"

  Opening his wal et, Jacob pul ed out his badge and held it up to the camera.

  "Come in!" the crackling voice said, and the tal gates started to glide apart.

  A smal Tudor-style gatekeeper's lodge was situated some fifty yards in on the left. The door opened and an elderly man limped out onto the drive.

  Jacob stopped the car again and climbed out.

  "You've no idea how long I've been waiting," the man said, holding his hand out and saying that he was Carlos Rodriguez.

  "What for?" Jacob said, surprised.

  The man hastily crossed himself. "The kil ing of Mr. Simon and Mrs.

  Helen has been unsolved for too long! It is like a heavy weight I carry."

  "So you knew the Rudolphs?" Jacob asked.

  "Knew?" Carlos Rodriguez exclaimed. "I've been the gardener here for more than thirty years. I was here the night it happened. I cal ed the police."

  Chapter 104

  Carlos Rodriguez and his wife, Carmela, had lived in the smal gatekeeper's lodge at the Mansion ever since he returned from the Vietnam War in the spring of 1975. Both of their children had grown up there.

  "Children are the future," Rodriguez said. "Do you have children?"

  "No," Jacob said, putting his ID back in his wal et. "But I'm interested in the Rudolphs' children. What happened to them after the murder?"

  The gardener sucked his teeth.

  "The twins were looked after by Senor Blython," he said. "He took them down to Los Angeles, to the big house he bought in Beverly Hil s."

  The man moved closer to Jacob and lowered his voice, as if someone might overhear him.

  "Senorita and Junior didn't real y want to move," he said. "They wanted to stay in their house here, but it was up to Senor Blython to decide. He was 138 their legal guardian, after al."

  "Who owns this place these days?" Jacob asked.

  He remembered that Lyndon said it had been in the hands of a bankruptcy agency.

  Rodriguez's face darkened.

  "The children inherited it, along with everything else: paintings, jewelry, stock shares, and small businesses. Senor Blython was charged with managing these assets until the children were twenty-one. But when that day came, the money was gone."

  Jacob raised an eyebrow. "Their guardian defrauded them?"

  "He took every last penny. The house was sold at an executive auction.

  The company that bought it was going to turn it into a conference center. But they went bankrupt in the financial crisis."

  "What did Sylvia and Malcolm Rudolph say about what happened?"

  The man's gaze wavered.

  "They couldn't stay on at UCLA. There was no money, not even for the fees. So they had to get jobs. But they managed," he said. "They're very resourceful."

  Jacob's jaw tightened. If the old man only knew.

  "When did you last see them?" he asked.

  Carlos Rodriguez didn't need to think about the answer. "The weekend before the house was sold at auction," he said. "They came to col ect a few mementos, photo albums and things like that."

  "They were both here?"

  "And Sandra," the gardener said. "Sandra Schulman, Sylvia's best friend.

  They only stayed a few hours on that last visit, and then they left, in the middle of the night…"

  "And then Senor Blython was murdered," Jacob said.

  Carlos Rodriguez snorted.

  "If you hang around with putas in Los Angeles…," he said.

  Jacob nodded and let the subject drop. The gardener had told him more than he had expected.

  "The main building," he said, "is it stil here?"

  Carlos Rodriguez's face broke into a smile again.

  "Pero claro que si! I'm not formal y employed anymore, of course. I get a little from the bank. Mostly we live on my pension. But I look after the Mansion."

  "Could you show me around?" Jacob asked.

  "Si, claro! Of course I can."

  Chapter 105

  Lyndon was right .

  The house was enormous, and it looked like something from a horror film set in the English countryside. Senor Rodriguez may have done his best to keep the building in good condition, but his lame old body had no chance against the wind, the damp, the weeds, and the ivy. One window frame had slipped its hinge and was squeaking in the wind.

  This was where it al began, wasn't it? The murders – the mystery of the Rudolphs.

  "The electricity has been cut off in the main house," the gardener said apologetical y as he unlocked the oak door.

  Jacob's footsteps echoed in the grand stone hal way. Doors stood half open, leading into high-ceilinged rooms and down long, dark corridors.

  He took a quick look into the various rooms where Sylvia and Malcolm had once lived.

  The whole building seemed to have been emptied of its contents. Jacob noticed a single curtain in a library that was empty of books.

  "The master bedroom is on the second floor. Fol ow me."

  A magnificent curved staircase led up to the more private parts of the mansion.

  Pale rectangles on the wal s revealed where paintings had once hung. A battered rococo sofa, its stuffing hanging out, stood alone and dusty on the first landing.

  "Straight ahead," Carlos Rodriguez said.

  The bed was stil there, an ornate four-poster without curtains or bedclothes. Otherwise the room was empty.

  "So this was where it happened?" Jacob said.

  The gardener nodded.

  "And you were here that night?"

  He nodded again.

  "What did you see? Tell me anything you remember. Please. It's important."

  The man swal owed.

  "Terrible things," he said. "Blood al over this room. Mr. and Mrs. were lying dead in that bed. They must have been asleep when it happened."

  "Did you see their injuries close up?"

  The man ran his index finger like a knife across his throat.

  "Deep cuts," he said. "Almost through to the bone at the back of the neck."

  He gave an involuntary shudder as Jacob watched him closely.

  How did you come to be here, in your employers' room in the middle of the night? I don't understand."

  The man took a deep breath, then spoke.

  "I was asleep with my family when Senorita rang. I hurried here straightaway."

  "It wasn't you who found them?"

  "No, no. It was little Sylvia."

  Chapter 106

  Monday, June 21

  Copenhagen, Denmark

  There was still a pattern here. It had just changed slightly.

  Dessie kept thinking she could see it clearly, just for a few seconds. Then it would slide out of her reach again.

  She was sitting on the unmade bed in her hotel room with al the pictures and po
stcards around her, al of Jacob's crumpled copies. She picked them up, even though she had seen them a hundred times, maybe more. Al the buildings and people and details were already imprinted in her memory.

  The postcard from Amsterdam of the plain building on Prinsengracht 267: the house where Anne Frank was hidden during the war, where she wrote her famous diary.

  Then Rome and Madrid: the Coliseum and Las Ventas, gladiatorial combat and bul fights. Arenas for theater based on kil ing.

  The Paris card was of La Conciergerie, the legendary antechamber of the guil otine.

  Berlin was a view of the bunker built by Hitler, the most famous failed artist in history.

  Stockholm showed the main square, Stortorget, the site of the Stockholm Bloodbath.

  But she couldn't make three of the cards fit the pattern of the others.

  The Tivoli pleasure gardens in Copenhagen.

  The Olympic stadium from the Athens games of 2004.

  And that anonymous shopping street in Salzburg.

  What did they have to do with death?

  Dessie let the pictures fal to the bed again.

  Was she imagining this pattern?

  Was it foolish to try to give any sort of order to the way these sick bastards thought?

  She stood up and went over to the window. The rain had given way to 141 mist and fog. Cars and bicycles were crossing Kongens Nytorv below her.

  Why was she real y bothering? Jacob had left her. The newspaper hadn't been in touch for days now. No one missed her.

  To be or not to be.

  As if you could choose to live or die.

  Could you? And in that case, what sort of life would it be?

  She knew she could do just as she liked, continue digging around in this story or go home: get involved or let go. Quite regardless of what other people thought, and what they thought about her, what did she actual y want to do now?

  She turned around and looked at the mess on the bed.

  Jacob hadn't managed to contact the Austrian reporter. He had never gotten hold of a copy of the picture of the bodies in Salzburg either.