Jack in the Box

by Blake Banner

  “We need to get a warrant.”

  I shook my head and pulled my Swiss army knife from my pocket. I hammered it into the lock with the heel of my hand and opened the door. “I think Alornerk is in here murdering her. And I thought I heard a scream.”

  She looked down at the patrolmen. “You guys heard that?”

  They shrugged. One of them said, “The traffic…”

  I stepped into the hall with my badge in my hand and shouted, “Detectives John Stone and Carmen Dehan, NYPD! Helena Magnusson! Are you here? Ebba?”

  There was utter stillness and silence in the house. Dehan had her weapon in her hand. I turned to the uniforms. “Hart, I want you on the door. Nobody comes in, nobody goes out. The other three, upstairs. Don’t touch anything. If you find a person, detain them and call me.”

  “You got it, Detective.”

  The other three climbed the stairs, weapons drawn. We moved into a formal drawing room. It was empty, tidy and clean. The cushions on the chairs and the sofa were all fluffed, the glasses and decanters were unused. There was no indication that anybody had been there in the last twenty-four hours.

  From there we moved into the dining room. It was the same. The table was clean and polished. It looked like a room in a museum. We moved through it to the kitchen. It was modern, with a black and white tiled floor, a gigantic silver fridge, an island with a huge iron range built into it and a sofa and two armchairs up against the far wall set around a coffee table. On the coffee table there was a coffee pot and a single cup. There was also an open magazine.

  On the sofa, Ebba was sitting staring at us. She looked astonished, and strangely immobile. There was a neat, black hole in the middle of her forehead, and the wall behind her head was a mess of gore and blood that had begun to dry.

  I pulled my cell from my pocket. I said to Dehan, “Tell the guys this is now a crime scene. Have Hart seal the place off and see what they’ve got upstairs. I’ll call this in.”

  She left the kitchen, I made the call and had a look around. There was nothing. Nothing I could latch onto and work from. She had been sitting having coffee and reading a magazine. Somebody had come into the kitchen and shot her. Somebody who was already in the house, otherwise she would have had to get up to answer the door.

  I pulled latex gloves from my pocket and put them on, then made my way back through the drawing room, past the front door where Hart was putting up the yellow tape, and up the stairs to the bedrooms and the morning room where she had received us on the first day. Dehan was there looking around. As I came in, she said, “The ashes in the fire are still warm, but not hot. The cushions on one of the chairs have been disturbed, and also on the sofa. There is a glass of sherry on the occasional table beside the chair, but no other glasses anywhere else in the room. It looks like she was alone in here.”

  “Doesn’t make much sense. She’s sitting having a glass of sherry in front of the fire on her own. Suddenly gets up, goes down to the kitchen and shoots Ebba in the head with a 9mm pistol. Then leaves.”

  “I’ve had a look for her purse or any form of ID. I can’t find any. I told Hart and his partner to stay on the door. I told the other guys they could go.”

  “OK.” I nodded. “Ebba is downstairs in the kitchen. She’s sitting drinking coffee and reading her magazine. So her killer is already in the house. There is no sign of struggle up here or in the drawing room downstairs, in the dining room…”

  “Or in the bedrooms.”

  “There is no blood immediately apparent. What would make Helena…”

  Hart stepped into the room. “Detectives, there is a neighbor downstairs who wants to talk to you. She says she saw Mrs. Magnusson leave with a man.”

  Dehan skipped down the stairs and I followed more carefully, trying to ignore the blunt axe wedged in my skull and the waves of nausea that occasionally washed over me.

  The woman at the door was tall, dressed in jeans and a Columbia sweatshirt. She was in her early thirties and had wide hips and narrow ankles, and her hair was piled up on her head like she thought she wasn’t tall enough. Dehan approached her.

  “Hi, I’m Detective Dehan, this is my partner, Detective Stone. You have some information for us about Helena Magnusson?”

  She had the trick of talking as though she was asking questions. “Well, I’m guessing you’re looking for her? She went out this morning? I was putting the kids in the car to take them to school? So that would be like, seven thirty? She was with a man and they were getting into her car and I waved over to her. Cause you know? I don’t often see her early like that? So I said, like, ‘Hey, you’re up early!’ and she says, like, ‘Yeah, I’m going away for a bit.’ Like, you know, she was going away for a long time? Which I thought was strange ’cause she had no luggage, you know? So, you know, I don’t know, like, when she’s coming back.”

  I said, “Can you describe the man?”

  She cocked a hip and sighed, staring up at the sky. “That’s kinda hard because he was like one of those like nondescript guys? Kind of average height, average build, and he, like, got straight in the car? So I didn’t really get a chance to look at him?”

  Dehan asked, “Did she say where she was going?”

  In the distance, we heard the wail of police sirens approaching. The woman glanced away up the street, then looked back at Dehan. “She said she was going back home. She said, one of those kinda Scandinavian countries: Switzerland? That’s Scandinavia, right? Or Norway?”

  I said, “Denmark?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, Denmark. It was Denmark. That’s right. She was going back home to Denmark.”

  I pulled my cell from my pocket. “OK, Sergeant Hart here will take your statement. Thanks, you’ve been very helpful.” I stepped out onto the stoop as two patrol cars, the crime scene van and the ME’s car came into the street and crowded around my Jag outside the door with their lights flashing.

  Dehan was just behind me on her phone. She said, “I’m looking at morning departures, New York-Denmark. We have JFK Copenhagen, Norwegian Air, departed at eleven twenty this morning. Call, I’m still looking.”

  “That’s the one,” I called. It rang a couple of times. Frank climbed the steps and Dehan took him inside. On the sidewalk, the CS team were climbing into their suits.

  Then a man’s voice said, “Norwegian, how can I help you?”

  “This is Detective John Stone of the NYPD. I need your manifest for flight 7014 out of JFK for Copenhagen at eleven twenty this morning.”

  “Sure, of course I can do that. I will need your police email.” I gave it to him and heard the rattle of keys. “Is there any particular passenger you are looking for?”

  “Yeah. Helena Magnusson.”

  He rattled a little longer. “I have sent you the manifest, Detective Stone, and I can confirm that Helena Magnusson was booked on that flight, first class.”

  “Thanks.”

  I hung up. Dehan was on the doorstep looking at me. “What?”

  “She was on the eleven twenty.” My phone pinged. “That will be the flight manifest.”

  “Mother…! What a stupid, pointless…”

  “Yeah…”

  “We’ll have to start extradition proceedings. Who was the guy? Alornerk? I guess he’ll be on the manifest too.”

  I shook my head. “He’s not exactly nondescript or average height.”

  “She must be crazy. She let you go because she wanted redemption. Then she just goes right ahead, kills Ebba and flees the country? What’s the sense in that?”

  I stared at her for a long moment, nodded and looked down the street to see the inspector’s car turning in from Morningside Avenue. He pulled up behind my Jag, climbed out and stood staring up at me for a moment. Then he sighed and climbed the stoop to stand in front of me.

  “I am not a man inclined to swearing, John, but what the hell are you doing here?”

  “Helena Magnusson has gone AWOL, sir. It looks as though she killed her maidservant before s
he left with a man. She was booked on the eleven twenty Norwegian Air flight to Copenhagen.”

  “Good Lord! What are you telling me?”

  Dehan answered for me. “We were in the hospital, sir.”

  “Where you belong,” he said to me, with some severity.

  “Stone was, probably still is, suffering from partial amnesia. But he began to remember bits and it came to him that the person who abducted him was Helena Magnusson…”

  “Are you sure, John?”

  “He was drugged, sir, and his vision was blurry, but it looked like her, and…” She gestured at the house. “It is looking very much like she has murdered her maid and fled the country.”

  “But… why?”

  I got in before Dehan. “Presumably because she feared that with this second investigation it would be discovered that she murdered her husband. It is the behavior of a very emotionally unstable person.”

  “So, she murdered her own husband, decapitated him and mailed herself his head? Is that what you are telling me?”

  Dehan shrugged. “It sounds crazy, sir, but then I guess decapitating people is pretty crazy in itself, right? She discovered that, not only was he having an affair, but he was planning to leave her for Penelope Peach. Penelope had broken up with the man who was keeping her and they had arranged to meet at Penelope’s apartment. Only he never showed up, because Helena intercepted him, brought him here and killed him. Mailing herself the head was the perfect way to deflect suspicion. Plus she had her lover provide her with an alibi.”

  She looked at me. “We’ll have to pull him in, see to what extent he was involved. We should also go down to the basement and see if you recognize it.”

  The inspector frowned at Dehan, then at me. “You sure you feel up to that?”

  I nodded. “Sure. I have a feeling it wasn’t here anyway.”

  We followed the crime scene team into the kitchen. The door was beside the fridge. I opened it and flipped on the light. There was a long, narrow, wooden staircase that descended eight or ten steps, then made a right angle down into an ample cellar with a concrete floor. There was a boiler, a washing machine and a dryer, the usual junk stashed up against one wall. The walls were bare brick, but there was no table, and there was no cheese cutter. I stood in the middle of the floor and shook my head.

  “No. This is not the place.”

  The inspector frowned at me again. “Are you sure? You said you were drugged and your vision was blurry.”

  I shrugged. “I’m pretty sure this is not the place. We’ll get the CS guys in to have a look, but the stairs are all wrong, there is no door. This isn’t the place.”

  He sighed heavily. “Well, in any case, I guess we can start wrapping up the investigation and tying up the loose ends. It was a challenging case and all credit to you for closing it. We’ll request extradition from Denmark, but I don’t hold out much hope. She’ll disappear within the European Union and probably fly out east or to South America before we can get the bureaucratic machinery up and running.” He patted my shoulder. “I’m sorry, John. It was a great job and you deserved to get your man. But I guess you can’t win them all. There is always one that gets away.”

  “I guess so, sir.”

  Dehan made a face of ruefulness and smiled through it at me. “Funny how she warned us right from the start that it might be a woman...”

  I grunted. “I thought she was hinting at Penelope.”

  The inspector adopted a paternal air. “Well, look, you two. I think you have done quite enough and you must be exhausted, especially you, John. There is nothing more for you to do here. I insist you go home and take a few days off. The crime scene team can take it from here. I’ll ask Alor…”

  “Alornerk.”

  “Thank you. I’ll ask him to come in and we’ll question him in light of these new events. You can deal with that, Carmen, can’t you, tomorrow or the day after? We can consider the case solved, if not yet fully closed. The rest is up to the lawyers. Now, off you go, home and rest.”

  We thanked him and made our way up the steps and through the kitchen, where Frank’s boys were lifting poor Ebba onto a gurney and out onto the stoop. As we went carefully down the steps, I held out my hand. “Keys, please. I feel the need to drive the old burgundy bruiser.”

  “You up to it?”

  “Of course. I was only drugged and buried alive. Don’t fuss, dear.”

  She snorted a laugh and slapped the keys into my hand. “Asshole.”

  “What does a guy need to do to get some sympathy around here?”

  I eased myself behind the wheel and fired up the big old growler. Dehan climbed in beside me. I put it in first and pulled away, headed east toward the FDR Drive. We drove in silence for a few minutes and finally she said, “We are going to need a few days, Stone.” I nodded and she went on. “It was traumatic for me. I really thought you were dead. I can’t imagine what it was like for you.”

  “Hell.”

  “It must have been.”

  “I’ll need breakfast in bed for the next week at least. Maybe two.”

  “Don’t joke about it, Stone. You’ll probably have PTSD. You need to take this seriously.”

  “I will.” I grinned at her. “I will add it to the list of things I need counseling for.”

  “You’re a jerk, Stone. I’m being serious.”

  “I know you are. So am I. You know what still gives me nightmares? When I found you in that lock up, inhaling gas. I still get flashbacks from that. And when you were abducted in the Westchester Angel case[2]. I really thought you were dead then. Those are the events that have traumatized me, Dehan.”

  She exhaled through her teeth and turned away. “You big, old…”

  She was quiet for a while then, blinking a lot until she finally wiped her eyes on her sleeve, pulled out a handkerchief and blew her nose. When she spoke, she sounded like she had a cold.

  “Well, even if you don’t get counseling, I think we need some time. You know, to kind of process this and… you know what I mean.”

  “Back at the dawn of time, when I was young, before we had counselors and everything had an acronym, we didn’t process things. We took time to get over them. Sometimes that involved getting drunk, other times it involved lying on a beach and sunbathing a lot. Or both. For girls it also involved crying, because, back then, guys didn’t cry, but we would stare at the horizon a lot, and throw stones into the sea. Is that the kind of thing you had in mind?”

  She giggled wetly and started crying again. Then she nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  “Sounds good to me, Dehan. I could use some of that.”

  She sniffed and blinked at the road for a bit. Then she frowned. “Where are you going, Stone? We don’t need to go to the station. We’re going home.”

  “Yeah, I just need to take a small detour on the way.”

  We were on the Bruckner Expressway and I peeled off to join the Boulevard at White Plains Road. Dehan’s face had become rigid. At the bridge, I turned left and crossed over the expressway. Then I turned left into Watson Avenue. Her jaw dropped and she turned to look at me.

  “Son of a bitch!” she said.

  I raised an eyebrow at her. “You hadn’t worked it out?”

  “Last night, but this whole thing with Helena… I thought I was wrong. What was that all about?”

  “It had been nagging at my mind since I glanced at the list of students. I didn’t know. I was drugged and groggy and my memory was patchy. It had to be explored. I wasn’t sure of anything.”

  We came to St Lawrence Avenue and turned in. There I stopped outside the white, clapboard house and climbed out.

  Peter Heseltine opened the door and smiled at us in some surprise.

  “Detectives! What can I do for you?”

  “We just want a few minutes of your time.”

  “Well, of course. Come in. You’re lucky to find me here, I would normally be at work.”

  I shrugged. “We were passing by. It was on
the off chance.”

  “Sure.”

  He led us into a comfortable living room on the ground floor overlooking the front yard. The furnishings were good, but old, and had a feminine quality to them. “I had assumed, when we dropped you off, that you had an apartment upstairs.”

  “Oh, no, I inherited the house from my mom. I’ve never really done anything with it. Please, sit. Coffee?”

  I shook my head and we sat. He sat too, on the sofa. I gave him an expressionless stare and said, “Is Helena Magnusson here?”

  He went white. “Of course not! Why would she be?”

  I gave another shrug. “She’s not at her house. I know you have a big crush on her. I thought she might be here.”

  “Good Lord! A crush? Me? Whatever gave you that idea?”

  “Well, you were pretty complimentary about her in the car. You described her as ‘superbly, elegantly European’. You also avoided talking about her and dodged Detective Dehan’s question about how well you knew her. So I put it all together and decided you had a crush on her.”

  He laughed. “Forgive me for saying so, Detective, but I think you have put one and one together and made five. I did not have a crush on Helena.”

  I nodded. “No, I have understated the case. You didn’t have a crush. You were insanely in love with her.”

  His eyebrows rose up high on his forehead. “Based on my describing her as elegantly European?”

  “That and the fact that you joined her creative writing classes.”

  He stared at me for a long time. His mouth was working but nothing was coming out. Finally he said, “That’s hardly…”

  “It would be nothing at all if you had told us about it from the start. But the fact that you never mentioned it is odd to the point of being highly incriminating. You must have gone there the night she received the package with her husband’s head in it. You must have known all her pupils in the class. You must have known Lenny dos Santos. You might have been a key witness, and yet you never said a word. You didn’t tell the original investigators, and you didn’t tell us during that long rant you had while you were in my car. In fact, all you did do during that rant was point the finger at Penelope Peach.”