Postcard killers Read online

  She walked toward her mobile phone, then picked it up and held it to her chest for a few seconds before dialing International Directory Inquiries.

  A minute later the phone rang at the reception desk of the Kronen Zeitung.

  "Ich suche Charlotta Bruckmoser, bitte," Dessie said.

  Chapter 107

  There were several clicks on the line, then the Austrian reporter was there.

  Dessie introduced herself as a fel ow reporter from Stockholm.

  "Before I start, I want to apologize for phoning and disturbing you," she said in her rusty schoolgirl German.

  "I was the one who received the postcard and picture in Sweden," she explained. "I wonder if I could ask you a couple of questions."

  "I haven't got anything to say," the reporter said, but she didn't sound angry. Just watchful.

  "I completely understand," Dessie said. "I know what you've been through."

  "I read about the kil ings in Sweden," Charlotta Bruckmoser said, sounding slightly less guarded.

  "Wel, here's something you might not know," Dessie said, and she told her story. About the photographs mimicking famous works of art, with a few exceptions; about the postcards of places where death and art mixed together, again with a few exceptions; about Jacob Kanon and his murdered daughter; about Sylvia and Malcolm Rudolph, their alibis and Jacob's conviction that, in 142 spite of everything, they were the Postcard Kil ers.

  The only thing she left out was the night in Jacob's room in the hostel.

  Two sharp beeping sounds told her that someone was trying to cal her, but she ignored them.

  Charlotta Bruckmoser was silent for a few moments after Dessie had finished speaking. "I haven't read any of this in the papers," she eventual y said.

  "No," Dessie said, "and I doubt you could get confirmation of it from any official sources."

  "What about you, what do you think?" the reporter asked cautiously. "Are the Rudolphs guilty?"

  Dessie took a moment to reply.

  "I real y don't know anymore."

  Silence again.

  "Why are you tel ing me this?" the Austrian woman asked.

  Two more beeping sounds. Someone was keen to get hold of her.

  "The pictures you received," Dessie said. "I'd real y like to see the pictures you received."

  "I'l e-mail you the card and the letter and everything," Charlotta Bruckmoser said.

  Ten seconds later there was a ping from Dessie's mailbox. The pictures were here!

  There was blood al over the room, as if the victims had been crawling about while they bled to death. Two lamps had been broken. The bodies had fal en forward onto their sides and lay about a meter apart on the floor.

  "Is there any Austrian work of art that looks like this?" Dessie asked.

  "Famous art?"

  The reporter took her time replying.

  "I don't think so," she said, "but I'm no expert. Famous art, though? I real y don't think so."

  Dessie clicked open the PDF of the envelope and looked at the address. It was written in the same block letters as the others. But on the back was something she hadn't seen before: nine numbers, hastily written down.

  "That number on the back," Dessie said, "what does that mean?"

  "It's a phone number," Charlotta Bruckmoser said. "I tried cal ing it. It's for a pizzeria in Vienna. The police decided it had nothing to do with the case."

  At that moment Dessie's inbox pinged again. She felt her stomach lurch.

  It's Jacob, ran the thought going through her head. He's e-mailed me because he misses me.

  It was from Gabriel a.

  Tried to cal you. Another double murder in Oslo.

  "I've got to go," Dessie said and hung up on Charlotta Bruckmoser.

  Chapter 108

  Los Angeles,

  USA

  UCLA was as big as a decent-size town in California. More than thirty thousand students, some two hundred buildings, more than fifty thousand applicants to be freshmen every year.

  Jacob had punched Charles E. Young Drive into the GPS, an address that was supposed to be in the university's northern campus, where the School of the Arts and Architecture was based.

  His contact, Nicky Everett, was waiting for him outside room 140, on the first floor of the building. The young man was wearing chinos, a golfing shirt, boat shoes, and frameless glasses. Jacob had never met anyone studying for a PhD in conceptual art, but he'd been expecting something more bearded and absentminded.

  "Thanks for taking the time to see me," Jacob said.

  "I believe in art that communicates," Nicky Everett said seriously, looking at him through the sparkling clean lenses.

  "Er…," Jacob said, "you knew Malcolm and Sylvia Rudolph?"

  "I wouldn't use the past tense," Everett said. "Even if we no longer have a physical relationship, there are other forms of contact, correct?"

  Jacob nodded. Okay.

  "Could we sit down outside perhaps?" he said, gesturing toward some benches just outside the main entrance.

  They went out and sat in the shade of a few spindly trees.

  "If I've understood this right, you studied here at the same time as the Rudolph twins – until they left – correct?"

  "Absolutely," Everett said. "Sylvia and Mac were leaders in their field."

  "Which was?"

  "Let me quote Sol LeWitt: 'In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.'"

  Jacob made an effort to understand, and also to keep his emotions in check. "So an event, or a series of events, can be a work of art?" he asked.

  "Of course. Both Mac and Sylvia were determined to take their work to its ultimate limits."

  Jacob remembered Dessie's stories of the art student who faked a psychotic attack for her examination piece, and the guy who smashed up a car on the subway and cal ed his artwork Territorial Pissing. He described these cases to Everett.

  "Could the Rudolphs ever do anything like that?"

  Nicky Everett pressed his glasses firmly onto his nose. "The Rudolphs were more meticulous in their expression. That al sounds rather superficial.

  'Territorial Pissing'?"

  Jacob ran his fingers through his hair. "So," he said, "explain it to me: 144 how can that be art? I want to hear this and understand it as best I can."

  The student looked at him with complete indifference in his face.

  "You think a work of art should be hung on a wal and sold on the commercial market?"

  Jacob realized the futility of going any further down this road and changed the subject. "They started an art group, the Society of Limitless Art…"

  "It was more of a web project. I don't think anything ever came of it."

  "What was their social life like otherwise? Family, friends, boyfriends, girlfriends."

  Nicky Everett seemed not to understand, as though the very idea that he might possess such insignificant facts was completely ridiculous.

  "Do you know if they were upset when their guardian died here in L.A.?"

  "Their what?"

  Jacob gave up.

  "Okay, I think we're good," he said, standing up. "It's a shame the Rudolphs couldn't afford to stay on here. Imagine al the incredible art they could have created…"

  He turned to go back to his car.

  Nicky Everett had also stood up, and for the first time, a genuine expression showed on his face. "'Couldn't afford to stay on here'? Sylvia and Mac were exceptional talents. They both had scholarships. There was no problem with fees."

  Jacob stopped short.

  "No problem? So why did they leave, then?"

  Everett blinked a few times, a sure sign that he was agitated.

  "They created the work Taboo and were expel ed. They showed up the bourgeois limitations and the hypocrisy of our society, and of this institution, of course."

  Jacob stared at the student.

  "What did they do? What was Taboo
? What was it that got them expel ed?"

  Nicky Everett's mouth curved into a smile.

  "They committed an act that was entirely relevant within the frame of their art. They had intercourse in a case in the exhibition hal."

  Chapter 109

  Jacob sat in the car with the GPS switched off and his duffel bag beside him on the passenger seat. The more he found out about the Rudolphs' background, the weirder they became. Taboo went way beyond Territorial Pissing.

  If he started with this latest piece of information, the signals he had picked up on from the recording at the Museum of Modern Art had been correct. The siblings had an erotic relationship. It was possible that people had different preferences within the world of conceptual art, but in Jacob's reality, you didn't have intercourse with your twin in public, not unless you had a whole toolbox ful of loose screws.

  The long trail of slashed throats they had left behind them couldn't be a coincidence either. The question was, What came first, the chicken or the egg?

  Had Sylvia discovered her murdered parents and been traumatized for life? Was she trying to get over the experience by repeating it, again and again, in the form of macabre works of art? Or was she the one who had kil ed her mother and father at the age of thirteen? Was that even physical y possible?

  Would she have had the strength to do it? The neck was tough. It was ful of muscles, sinews, and ligaments. But above al, why would she have kil ed her parents?

  He took it for granted that the twins had murdered the guardian who had embezzled the whole of their inheritance.

  And who was Sandra Schulman, the friend mentioned by the gardener?

  He would have to track her down, too. And the boyfriend, Wil iam Hamilton.

  For some reason he suddenly saw Dessie Larsson before him, her long hair and graceful profile, her slender fingers, her vigilant green eyes.

  Had the mob of journalists final y given up waiting outside Dessie's door?

  Had she gone back to her old routine?

  Was she thinking of him? Was she al right?

  Irritated, he shrugged off the thought. He had more work to do in L.A.

  Chapter 110

  William Hamilton,or Billy as his friends cal ed him, opened the door with his long, dirty blond hair standing on end and wearing nothing but a pink bath towel.

  "What?" he said abruptly, blinking in the dim light from the stairwel.

  "What now?"

  "Police," Jacob Kanon said, holding up his badge, obscuring the NYPD.

  "Can I come in? Of course I can."

  "Shit," Bil y said, frowning, but letting the door swing open.

  Jacob took that as a yes and stepped into the apartment.

  It wasn't bad, the apartment. It was on Barrington Avenue, just a few miles from Westwood Vil age and the UCLA campus. It was at the top of the 146 building, with a large terrace overlooking the pool and a garden.

  There was a fashionable kitchen/bar and an open gas fire.

  "What the hel 's the matter this time? What do you people want now?"

  Bil y sank into a white corner sofa facing the artificial fire. The towel slid open, revealing wel -muscled, suntanned thighs.

  "Honey, who is it?" a woman's voice cal ed from one of the bedrooms.

  "Mind your own business," he muttered under his breath.

  "I'm here about Sylvia and Malcolm Rudolph," Jacob said, sitting down on the sofa without being asked. Bil y let out a low groan.

  "What the fuck? I've already answered a load of dumb questions! When am I supposed to have found the time to slum around Europe? I stil don't have a passport. I've got a job here."

  "Doing what?" Jacob asked, fighting an instinctive dislike of the guy on the sofa.

  Bil y straightened his shoulders. "Actor," he said.

  "Wow," Jacob said. "What have you been in?"

  Bil y's shoulders sank a bit. He wiped his nose. "I'm a musician, too. And I'm working on a script for television."

  Jacob tried to look impressed. He wasn't, not in the least. He thought that a baboon could probably write a script for television.

  "You met Sylvia when you were studying performance drama at UCLA…"

  Hamilton spread his arms.

  "Okay, this is how it is: I tried to save Sylvia from her crazy brother.

  Their relationship got seriously fucked up when Sandy disappeared. Malcolm was total y obsessed with her. You fol owing me, taking notes?"

  Jacob interrupted him.

  "Disappeared? Who disappeared? Sandra Schulman?"

  Irritated, Bil y Hamilton got up and walked up and down in front of the fire.

  "They were going up to the Mansion to get the last of their stuff, but I had an audition and couldn't go. They waited for her, but Sandy never showed up for the car trip. No one knows what happened to her. Mac took it real bad. We al did."

  Jacob sat there without moving, trying to fit the information together in his head.

  "Malcolm Rudolph and Sandra Schulman were a couple?"

  "Wel, yeah. Ever since high school. She came from Montecito. They were neighbors."

  "Darling, who are you talking to?" cal ed the woman in the bedroom. "I'm lying here waiting for you."

  "Shut the fuck up!" Bil y shouted. "I'm busy!"

  He sniffed and wiped his nose again. "I don't know what else to tel you, 147 dude."

  Jacob took that as a signal to move on and started toward the door.

  "Where was Sandra Schulman living when she disappeared?" he asked.

  "Same place as Sylvia and Mac. Apartment on Wilshire and Veteran. Ask me, they might have been a threesome. Except that Sylvia was jealous of Sandy. Very… Hey, are you going? Already? What a shame."

  "What was the number? The apartment on Wilshire?"

  Hamilton looked scornful y at him.

  "What do I look like, fucking Google?"

  Chapter 111

  Jacob went back to his car and made a phone cal.

  Carlos Rodriguez answered with the same crackling si as he had at the gate of the Rudolphs' mansion in Montecito.

  "Jacob Kanon here," Jacob said. "NYPD? We spoke yesterday."

  "Si, senor.?Que pasa? How can I help you, Detective?"

  "Just one more question. It's about Sandra Schulman. You said she was with them at the Mansion that last weekend before the auction? Is that correct?"

  "Si. Why?"

  "You're quite sure?"

  "Sandra used to play here since she was a little chiquitita. Of course I recognized her. She and Malcolm were boyfriend and girlfriend."

  "How did Sylvia feel about her?"

  "Oh, I don't know. She liked having Malcolm to herself. They were very close, brother and sister."

  "Did you speak to Sandra that evening at the house?"

  "Si, claro! She kissed me on the cheek."

  Jacob pushed the hair from his forehead.

  "You said the twins left in the middle of the night. Did you see them drive away?"

  "Pero claro que si. They woke me up. The gate can only be opened manual y, from inside the lodge."

  "Did you notice if Sandra Schulman was in the car?"

  There was silence at the other end.

  "It was late at night," he said. "You couldn't see anything inside the car."

  "But you spoke to the Rudolphs?"

  "With the senorita. She was driving."

  "But you didn't actual y see Sandra Schulman leave the property?"

  There was a moment's silence.

  "She must have gone with them, because they didn't leave her behind."

  Jacob covered his eyes with his hand.

  "Thanks," he said. "That's al I needed to know."

  He ended the cal and quickly made another.

  Chapter 112

  Lyndon Crebbs answered after the first ring.

  "How's it going, you amateur? Are you getting anywhere?" Lyndon asked.

  "Can you check on a Sandra Schulman? Last known address Wilshire Avenue, corner of V
eteran Avenue."

  "Anything special about her?"

  "She may have disappeared, permanently. Take this as a tip from an anonymous source: she could be buried in the hil s above Montecito. Sylvia was jealous of her. Enough said."

  Jacob could hear the FBI agent's pen scratch.

  "What about Wil iam Hamilton?" Lyndon Crebbs asked as he wrote. "Is he stil alive, I hope?"

  "If the LAPD takes a look there, they'l find a heap of snow in the bedroom. He's alive. But he's an obnoxious little prick."

  Lyndon chuckled.

  "By the way," he said, "I was reading the report on the search of the Rudolphs' hotel room in Stockholm. What did that key belong to?"

  "What key?" Jacob said.

  "The little key that's mentioned at the bottom of page three."

  "How the hel could you read that, Lyndon? It's in Swedish."

  "Haven't you ever used the site www.tyda.se?" Lyndon Crebbs said. "Just an old man wondering."

  The police in Stockholm must have checked it out, Jacob thought. "Christ, this is mad," he said. "Do you know why the twins were thrown out of UCLA?

  They had sex with each other in public."

  "Ah, today's youth," the FBI agent said. "Something else occurred to me: what if there are other kil ers? What if the Rudolphs have inspired copycats?"

  "The thought has occurred to me, too," Jacob said. "But it doesn't fit. The content of the postcards has never been made public, for instance. If there are more kil ers, they have to be working together."

  "Sicker things have been known to happen," Lyndon Crebbs said. "When do you think you'l be back at Citrus Avenue?"

  Jacob grew serious. "I won't be back this visit," he said. "I'm heading off now."

  Lyndon Crebbs was silent, a silence that only grew. Jacob was treading water. He couldn't bring himself to ask the only relevant question: exactly how bad was the prostate cancer?

  Jacob spoke again. "Just one more thing. Could you pul a few strings and see if you can find out anything about Lucy? My ex? I should tel her about Kimmy."