Looking to the Woods

by Frédérique Molay

  Nico took the report and looked through it.

  “Your intuition was right,” Rost said.

  The two men looked at each other in silence, taking in the full significance of this discovery.

  Nico finally spoke. “You know what I think? The killer planted the fiber on the boy, knowing that he would use the same material to tie the hair of his next victim. He’s planned out every one of his moves, and he’s testing us.”

  “There were no prints on the message we found on the wall in Eva Keller’s room or on the screwdriver. In fact, we found no trace evidence at all in the apartment. Nothing. That’s rare. This killer is very skilled.”

  “Skilled? Let’s not give him that much credit. What about the blood in the room?”

  “The splatters on the walls and sheets match the splatters a screwdriver would make. The one we found is being tested for DNA.”

  Nico’s cell phone buzzed. He didn’t recognize the number.

  “It’s Małgorzata Włodarczyk. Do you remember me?”

  “Of course. Would you hold for a moment, please?”

  He put the phone down and turned to Rost. “Launch the SALVAC search, and ask Dominique to work on the killer’s profile.”

  Rost nodded and left, and Nico picked up the phone. “What can I do for you?”

  “It’s about the letter I translated for you. I told you that it’s from a children’s counting song. ‘Down the chimney comes Santa Claus. But where, oh where, are the toys? In his big bag, at the bottom . . . One by one here they come: one piglet fair, two teddy bears . . .’”

  Nico listened to her humming the tune.

  “I thought you might like to know the rest of the lyrics. ‘Three round balloons in tow, four planes a pretty lemon yellow, and five yummy candies—oh!’”

  He almost laughed. He didn’t know what to make of it.

  “Thank you,” he said. “That could help.”

  “I told you. My father was a cop—in Gdansk.”

  Poland: a country that had once even disappeared from the map of Europe, partitioned among Russia, Prussia, and Austria. Today, it was a member of the European Union.

  “I learned from my father that even the smallest detail could lead to something in an investigation.”

  Her accent, which emphasized the penultimate syllable in each word, was charming.

  “I’m crossing my fingers for you, Chief. Don’t hesitate to call if you need me.”

  Nico thanked her again and hung up, wondering what the song could mean.

  Nico and Alexandre Becker met for lunch at Ma Salle à Manger, a restaurant in the Place Dauphine known for its hospitable atmosphere and southwestern French cooking.

  Florence, the energetic owner, greeted them like old friends and guided them inside, away from the crowded outdoor tables. Posters of Bayonne and red-and-white checked tablecloths made them feel like they were in the Basque country. Braided heads of garlic and peppers decorated the room.

  “Here’s a quiet table where you can discuss your business. Don’t worry about that table of ten over there. It’s reserved for a group of Brits, and they won’t understand a word you say. How about a pitcher of Gaillac, a special vintage I keep for my favorite customers?”

  “Sorry, I’m on duty,” Nico answered.

  “Now, now, Chief. Working on a weekend? You’ve got to relax a little, or else you won’t be any good at work.”

  “Whatever you recommend,” Becker said.

  Florence winked and headed back to the counter to slice up a fresh baguette on a vintage guillotine cutting board. She grinned as she placed a bread basket and a bottle of red wine on the table a couple of minutes later.

  “And how are your lovely ladies?” she asked.

  At that moment, the English diners, animated and clearly eager to eat, walked into the restaurant. Nico gave Florence a thumbs-up to indicate that all was well in their personal lives, and she hurried over to welcome the group.

  After seating the newcomers, Florence instructed the server to take Nico’s and Becker’s orders: cassolettes de lentilles to start, followed by a tartare de canard aux endives and piquillos à la luzienne. In a flash, the woman trotted down the stairs to the kitchen.

  “That’s a lot to be eating in the middle of the day, Nico,” Becker said. “We’ll be falling asleep at our desks.”

  “No chance of that happening. I can’t remember the last time I ate.”

  “What a mess,” Becker said. “Three horrific murders, one of them a celebrity’s daughter, some devilish letter written in red ink, and the only clues so far: a fiber, a ribbon, and an apparent link to a fabled serial killer.”

  Nico was keenly aware that an investigating magistrate would have a hard time holding on to a semblance of independent thinking against a media onslaught, public opinion, and pressure from the higher-ups. In situations like this, even those with the best intentions could wind up trying to save their own skin.

  “I suppose you know by now that the prosecutor has tossed me the hot potato,” Becker said.

  Their server returned with their starters.

  “What’s the story with Lucian Staniak? It sounds ridiculous. I can see the headlines already: ‘The Red Spider’s New Web.’ Next thing we know, Marvel will come out with a graphic novel based on a character by the same name.”

  “According to Dominique Kreiss, we’ve got a psychopath on our hands. He’s methodical, intelligent, and clever. He chose his victims with a precise pattern in mind.”

  “Logically, that kind of murderer preys on a specific type of victim. Jack the Ripper killed prostitutes from poverty-stricken Whitechapel. All of them were older, with the exception of the last one, who was only twenty-five. The crime scenes were similar, and he killed them all in the same manner.”

  “I’m aware of that. But there’s a big difference between Kevin Longin and Eva Keller.”

  Florence interrupted the men as they were sopping up the remnants of the cassolettes with their bread.

  “Don’t your lady loves make you anything to eat?” Florence said, refilling Nico’s water glass.

  “How could anyone rival your cooking?” Becker asked.

  Florence grinned. “You’re making me blush. I’ll get your main course.”

  Becker turned back to Nico. “I want to talk to you about the second message.”

  “‘Piglet.’”

  “That raises the question: Who are the two teddy bears?”

  “Kevin Longin,” Nico said.

  “And the second?”

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this. You know how coincidences make me nervous. You don’t think that—”

  Nico’s phone buzzed, and he reached for it quicker than he’d meant to. He caught Becker’s questioning eyes.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “I was hoping it was Caroline. But no, it’s from Europol.”

  “You look disappointed.”

  Alexandre Becker was a friend. In fact he was like a brother to him.

  “I don’t know. She seems a little distant these days.”

  “With you? You’ve got to be joking. That’s impossible.”

  “And yet . . .” Nico could barely say it.

  “You must be imagining things. Maybe something is going on at the hospital. Do you want me to have a word with Stéphanie? She and Caroline are close.”

  “No, Alexandre. I’ll figure it out. We should eat and get back to the office.”

  Nico opened the e-mail from Europol, printed out the report, and dived in with Becker.

  Staniak lived to make his victims suffer. He’d cut them open, eviscerate them, and lay out their intestines, kidneys, and reproductive organs for show. Unlike Jack the Ripper, he liked his victims young. He was sexually frustrated and had no moral compass.

  Nico interrupted the silence. “Can you believe that Staniak wound up living out his life in an asylum? After he got the death sentence, they decided he was too crazy to execute.”

  Be
cker sighed, setting the report down on Nico’s desk. “In many countries—France included—a killer has to be of sound mind to be sentenced to death. When someone is non compos mentis, society doesn’t have the right to execute him. In Staniak’s case, it seems his parents and sister had died in a car accident caused by a female driver who was never prosecuted, and Staniak murdered young women who looked like her.”

  “Yes, but Staniak’s homicides weren’t just revenge killings. He had a thirst to be recognized, a drive for power and domination, and sexual perversions as well.”

  “Staniak had a mental illness nobody could heal. He was non compos mentis.”

  Becker got up and walked over to the window, and Nico returned to the report.

  “Do you think that’s the case with our killer?” Nico asked, fearing he already knew the answer.

  He didn’t wait for a response. He continued reading about Lucian Staniak. And then he noticed something. A shiver ran up his spine. Eva Keller hadn’t been chosen at random. It was time to call everyone together.

  “I’m listening,” Deputy Commissioner Cohen said as he strode through the door and took a seat. Cohen was a short man, but he always made his presence known.

  “Commander Théron, start with the autopsy,” Nico said.

  “The assailant struck the victim in the back of the head, knocking her out. Then he cut open her belly with the screwdriver found at the scene, pulled out her organs, and spread them over her body.”

  “What was used to knock her unconscious?” Becker asked.

  “A blunt object that has yet to be found,” Deputy Chief Rost said.

  “Wait a second,” Nico interrupted, looking through his files. “Lucian Staniak used a bottle of vodka to knock out his last victim. Furthermore, she was eighteen and a student at the Kraków film school. Eva Keller was a film student. What if that’s why the killer chose her? Maybe he was copying the Red Spider down to the last detail.”

  “Okay, but why Eva Keller?” Becker asked. “The school has other students.”

  “Perhaps our copycat wanted to take it up a notch,” Dominique Kreiss said. “Killing Eva was bound to get a lot of media attention.”

  Everyone fell silent for a moment.

  “She was murdered around midnight,” Théron finally said. “And the man who did it was probably right-handed. Unfortunately, the autopsy yielded no other new clues.”

  “What about the girl’s school?” Cohen asked. He was sitting on the edge of his chair, fingering a cigar.

  Théron answered, “The school’s president didn’t have anything especially significant to say. Eva was extremely talented, which we already know, and had a promising future ahead of her, thanks in part to her famous father. That said, she wasn’t conceited, and she got along well with her peers. Both the teachers and the other students liked her. Nothing unusual seemed to have occurred recently. I have a list of staff and students. We’ll be calling them one by one.”

  “What about William Keller’s affair?” Nico was tapping a pen on his desk.

  “I contacted the actress,” Rost answered. “I promised to keep the affair quiet, as long as it had no bearing on the homicide. And I do believe it’s unrelated. We have an appointment tomorrow morning—with you, Chief.” He looked over at Nico.

  Théron whistled, and Nico gave him a half smile. He was just trying to lighten the funeral-parlor atmosphere.

  “Being chief has its perks,” Nico said. “Has the lab pulled anything from Eva Keller’s phone?”

  “We’re comparing her four hundred or so contacts with the students and staff at her school. She was very organized. Practically all her contacts were grouped according to how she knew them. One number caught our attention: it belongs to a certain person named Wilde. They talked on the phone quite a few times on the day she died. The number hasn’t shown up on her phone since Thursday.”

  “It’s clear that Eva Keller had a date with Wilde at seven on Thursday,” Rost said. “It’s in her calendar, but no location is indicated.”

  “A boyfriend?” Becker wondered.

  “It’s too soon to tell,” Théron said. “And the neighbors have nothing to say, other than that she was pleasant, quiet, and polite. Like the rest of Montmartre, the square she lives on is always full of people. That said, it was a public holiday, so the streets were less busy than usual.”

  Cohen finally spoke. Nico felt the man’s dark eyes bore through him as he verbalized the urgency of the situation: “We need to find this guy before he kills another Eva Keller—or Kevin Longin.”

  Nico turned to Dominique Kreiss. “Do you have anything more on the killer’s profile?”

  “He’s throwing me off, I have to admit. I base my profiles on the way a serial killer murders, mutilates, and disposes of bodies, on the places the homicides are committed, and on the characteristics shared by the victims. This information allows me to draw up a portrait. Here, on one hand, we have a copycat. Eva Keller’s murderer imitated Lucian Staniak. On the other hand, he also took out his aggressions on a teenage boy, who is a very different kind of prey. And the location is very different as well.”

  “His MO is different, too,” Maurin said. “With Kevin Longin, he took a trophy—the hand. If he’s copying someone, and it’s not Staniak, who is it?”

  “It’s all very curious,” Kreiss said. “I’m missing something . . .”

  “We’re missing something,” Nico corrected. “What if there are two of them, working together, but each with their own method?”

  “At this point, anything is possible,” Cohen said.

  “Some psychiatrists say that copycats don’t copy exactly,” Kreiss said. “Each killer is unique. Some get close, though, like Heriberto Seda, who was sentenced to life in prison in 1998 for murders in New York. He copied the Zodiac Killer, who was never caught. That said, even a copycat would have his own signature.”

  Cohen stood up, signaling that the meeting had come to an end. “You’ve got your work cut out for you. Nico, I’m counting on you.”

  Everyone filed out of the office, except Alexandre Becker, who walked over to his friend. “This seems to be getting to you, Nico.”

  “It is. I feel like I’m just waiting for another homicide. Will it be a child? A woman? A man? I don’t know where this guy is headed. I can’t figure him out.”

  The magistrate put a hand on Nico’s shoulder. “You have the singular ability to slip into the minds of the worst criminals. It’s one of the things that makes you a great cop. You’ll find him. And remember, we’re still in the early phases of our investigation.”

  “Yep . . .”

  “And don’t worry. This thing with Caroline will work itself out.”

  Nico frowned and waved Becker away.

  “Call me if you need anything. I’m available twenty-four seven—you know that.”

  Nico gave him a friendly slap on the shoulder, and Alexandre Becker left the office. Back at his desk, Nico turned his attention to the little girl’s homicide. No sooner had he opened the file than he realized what was bothering him. A tiny detail. A mouse that could bring an elephant to its knees.

  He picked up the phone and entered the number. A woman answered. He’d have to sound reassuring. He knew how to do that—how to fake it if he needed to.

  “Good evening, ma’am. This is Nico Sirsky, head of the Criminal Investigation Division in Paris. We met a few—”

  “I remember.”

  Nico picked up on the tension in her voice. The police had called incessantly over the past four months, never bearing good news. She had no reason to expect differently now. Her daughter was gone. But the dread would always be there.

  “I’m sorry to bother you. I have just one question.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “When you declared your daughter missing, you gave the police a description of how she was dressed.”

  “That’s correct.”

  “I see that Juliette was wearing a ribbon in her hair.”


  “She wanted a ponytail that day.”

  “What did the ribbon look like?”

  “It had little pink-and-red flowers.” Nico heard a sob on the other end of the line.

  “Ma’am. I’m going to e-mail you a photo. Please take a look at it, and let me know if it could be Juliette’s ribbon.”

  “Have you found Juliette’s killer?” Nico could hear another sob coming, and he steeled himself.

  “Not yet, Dr. Bisot. I promise we’ll let you know right away if we have something new to report.”

  “I’ll check my e-mail.”

  “I’ll call you back in five minutes.”

  Nico sent the photo of the ribbon and waited. He watched the second hand swoop around the face of his wall clock. Around and around. He suddenly thought of Dimitri and Joni Mitchell’s song, “The Circle Game.” His son was growing up and turning into a young man, one who was concerned about others. He would likely make a good cop.

  The phone rang. “Dr. Bisot!” his secretary called out.

  “Put her through.”

  “It’s the ribbon Juliette was wearing.”

  Nico quickly thanked the grieving mother and hung up. He headed out the door. Professor Queneau would be in the forensics lab. He was sure of it.

  “Can you check for traces of Juliette Bisot’s DNA on the ribbon found in Eva Keller’s hair?” he asked as soon as he walked into the lab.

  “I’ll get on it right away.”

  11

  Sunday, May 12

  Sunday morning. Suit and tie. Breakfast at Ladurée, a hub of Left Bank chic at the corner of Rue Jacob and Rue Bonaparte in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Nico and Deputy Chief Rost were seated at a round wrought-iron table on the veranda. Rost had chosen the cushioned love seat, and Nico a leather lawn chair next to a palm tree. It would have been difficult to get any cozier or more elegant. Guests melted into the surroundings, having left the stresses of the outside world behind them. But for Nico, it was another day at work, and even at Ladurée, the colorful macarons did little to distract from three bloody murders that needed to be solved.