Frost and Ashes (Daniel Trokics Series Book 2)

by Inger Wolf

  Bent Kornelius’s building was on the northern edge of the cluster of apartment complexes. Bazar West, where Trokic often shopped for specialties, was close by. He'd grown up in the vicinity, and sometimes he thought the only difference from back then was cosmetic, the new façades. That and the satellite dishes hanging from every balcony. Like big gray eyes staring east, picking up everything from Al-Jazeera to Denmark's Radio to the newest erotic film on one of Viasat's many channels.

  The reality behind the façades was different, though. The past few years’ many popular initiatives to fight crime had been successful. But the last three months had seen more confrontations, break-ins, arson, and in particular more turmoil on the streets. Which is why it had been decided to once again strengthen and coordinate efforts of the district, police, and organizations in the area. The police had opened a new local station in City West with a force of twenty-five officers.

  Several of Trokic's colleagues were sick and tired of Gellerup and the way they were treated there when they showed up, such as when people yelled and threw rocks at them. But Trokic had never experienced these people as any better or worse than the rest of Århus. Perhaps he had a better sense of how to deal with them because he'd grown up nearby, yet many other officers with non-Danish ethnic backgrounds apparently also had problems out there.

  * * *

  The retired police chief opened the door with a friendly smile. Lisa had mentioned he’d just turned seventy-five, but he didn’t look a day over sixty. His full head of hair was still black, though a few strands of gray hung over his big ears, and the eyes behind his light eyeglass frames were clear and alert. He wore jeans and a blue shirt. He looked to be in good shape; Trokic guessed he jogged around Braband Lake or exercised regularly some other way. He shook Trokic’s hand firmly and invited him inside where it was warm.

  "You look like a man who could stand a glass of fresh orange juice. My guess is you've already had several pots of coffee by now. What do you say?"

  "That sounds great to me." Trokic's headache was still banging around in the back of his head, though in its final throes.

  "Have a seat in the living room; I'll be there in a minute. Enjoy the view."

  Trokic walked into the large room. Two walls were covered with bookcases filled with books, ring binders, and neatly stacked magazines. A green sofa occupied one corner, and above it hung two Warhol prints: a can of tomato soup and a red cat on a white background. Several small rugs covered the parquet floor. Persian, Indian, oriental. The myriad of colors was overwhelming, and for a moment he thought about his own walls, painted gray with a touch of green. The lack of colors had a calming effect on him. He walked over to the window and looked out at the satellite-dish, snow-covered concrete landscape. The gloominess of it all. Kornelius brought in two glasses of orange juice and a bowl of mint chocolates on a tray.

  "Quite a view, huh?"

  He laughed and set the tray down on the coffee table. "So, you want to talk to me about the Riise case in Mårslet? That was ages ago, let me see…thirty-four years ago? Good Lord, where has the time gone?"

  "I was hoping you might remember something that isn't in the reports. And I'm interested in hearing your thoughts about the case."

  They sat down on the sofa, and Kornelius pushed a pillow behind his back. "We had problems with the technical side of the investigation. We doubted he could drown himself there. And it was freezing cold, that made it even harder to imagine. And the creek was low at that time, too."

  "I understand you had the parents in your sights."

  "They were reserved, to say the least. Tight-lipped. Didn't want to talk about Eigil, which we thought was odd, very odd. Who wouldn't want to find out the truth in that situation? A couple of cold bastards if you ask me. We interviewed the neighbors and people at school where the father worked. But they were like cardboard characters if you know what I mean. Nobody could really say anything about them; nobody knew them very well. They kept to themselves. The father taught his classes, and other than that they were never around. I heard they moved out of the country."

  "Do you know where?"

  He shook his head. Trokic took a sip of juice. It was nice to get something other than coffee. He wasn’t good at taking care of himself that way.

  "Did the boy have a sister by the name of Jonna?"

  "Yes. She was only six at the time. She never said a word. I didn't hear her open her mouth one single time."

  "But why were you suspicious of the parents? When nothing in particular pointed to them, I take it?"

  "A man called us and accused them, said they were responsible. That's why we investigated the family relationships, but we simply didn't have anything on them. The father was teaching at the time of the boy's death, and the mother was at the dentist if I remember right."

  "There's nothing in the report about the accusation. Do you know what happened to the man who called in?"

  "Yes, his name is Gabriel Jensen. I remember because he kept telling us he was named for Gabriel Marselis, who’s said to have owned most of the area in the 1600s. He wasn't an altogether reliable witness, by the way. We found out he'd been sentenced for exposing himself in front of some underage boys. We ended up investigating him too, but it didn't lead to anything. And then when some of Eigil's friends said he'd talked a lot about death, we decided it was a suicide and closed the case."

  "How old was Gabriel at that time?"

  "In his late 20s, I believe. Who knows, maybe he still lives in town."

  Trokic did the calculation in his head; if Eigil hadn't died in the creek, he would have been only a few years older than Trokic himself. An entire life filled with possibilities, joys, and sorrows, thrown away at the age of eleven. Not even old enough to experience love, seriously anyway. What could have been so terrible that made him want to end his short life?

  The retired policeman interrupted his thoughts. "But you didn't come here to ask me about all this unless there's some connection to a new case. Is it the boy in Mårslet?"

  "Yes."

  "But he was strangled, wasn't he? Why don't you tell me about the case? I'll get an ashtray. You look like you could stand a cigarette."

  * * *

  For the next fifteen minutes, Trokic described the case to Kornelius as he smoked his fourteenth cigarette of the day. The older man listened intently. Finally, Trokic placed the photograph from the bakery on the coffee table. It was the version Lisa had tried to sharpen; the man in the background was still fuzzy and unclear.

  "The photo comes from the bakery’s surveillance camera. We're trying to determine this man’s identity."

  Kornelius took the photo up and studied it with the same attention he would give to a contract worth millions. "I would say it's impossible to identify him. Are you thinking it could be Gabriel?"

  Trokic nodded.

  "To be honest, I thought the man was creepy. Dirty, vulgar, unwilling to cooperate. But I believed him. I felt that he was the man he was because he couldn't figure out how to be any different. I also felt he liked Eigil, and that he was harmless. I haven't seen the man in twenty-five years, of course. Even if the photo was clear, I wouldn't be able to tell if it was him. But it's worth looking into."

  * * *

  On his way out the door, Kornelius laid a hand on his arm. "I just remembered something. There was some sort of witch in the town back then; I don't know if she's still alive. Quite the character."

  "Magdalena?"

  "That's her. She's the one who found the boy. She was a nature guide, lived close to the creek. I think she knew Eigil pretty well. Maybe she could tell you more. We talked to her back then, but I don't remember the details."

  Trokic nodded. The stairway was cold, and it felt as if the heat he'd stored up in the apartment was leaking out of him. He zipped up his coat. "I know who she is; I'll talk to her. Right now."

  They shook hands. "Take care of yourself, Detective."

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Th
e bizarre gray hat with ear flaps sat on her head precisely the same way as before. Though now enhanced by a necklace that looked like a bear claw.

  "Would you like some tea?"

  Magdalena was already holding out the pot, frighteningly close to the cup she'd set out for him. Would it be an insult to say no? Would he be provoking a hidden world of small, emotionally unstable spirits guarding the house? That was a chance he was willing to take. Trokic didn't like drinking unidentifiable substances, no matter how highly she thought of her own brewing talents. In his younger days, he'd eaten magic mushrooms and had seen green sow bugs with teeth as big as chainsaws, then he'd climbed out on the balcony of his mother's fifth-floor apartment to avoid his fellow mushrooming friend, who had suddenly acquired a pair of snake eyes. He’d learned his lesson: reality wasn’t all that bad a thing.

  "No, thank you."

  "Then I'll have a cup myself." Her voice was frail but undaunted.

  She adjusted the large, shapeless hat and poured her tea. "It's my own blend of fennel, licorice root, horsetail, beech leaves, daisies, and lots of other good things. So how can I help you this time?"

  Trokic hesitated. How could he get the most out of her without affecting her memory in some way, which could happen if he revealed what he already knew. "Do you remember Eigil Riise? I heard you were the one who found him in the creek. You were a nature guide back then?"

  "Oh, my. Reaching back to when the ace of spades was a mere jack, are we? Why are you interested?"

  "I'm just comparing it with the present case."

  "They aren’t at all similar. I was convinced that poor Eigil did away with himself. There were rumors, of course, about it being a murder or an accident, and for a long time parents didn’t permit their children to go down to the creek."

  "But there was something about how low the creek was?"

  The witch studied her tea as if she were reading the whole story in the green liquid. "Hmm. That was quite some time ago. But I do believe it was low, yes. He was lying face down when I found him, but he could have drifted from a deeper part of the creek."

  "But isn't it difficult to drown in this creek?"

  "Oh, yes. I don't believe you can, either. Unless you were Eigil."

  Tread carefully here, Trokic told himself. "What do you mean, why would being Eigil make a difference?"

  "Unless you were determined to put an end to it all, is what I mean."

  "A colleague of mine tells me you knew the boy well?"

  "That's true. The boy was always down at the creek; that's where I gather a lot of my grasses and herbs in this area. We spoke often, and I taught him about nature. That's also why I know he killed himself. He was troubled."

  "In school, at home? How do you mean?"

  "I'm not sure, but I had the feeling it was something with his home life. In my opinion, the boy was ill. Mentally ill. But such things weren't talked about back then. He was thin as a reed, with sunken cheeks like you see in photos from concentration camps. Black rings around his eyes. Most of the time his hands were shaking, too, and he stuttered when he was nervous."

  Trokic gazed out the small panes of the window. The snow-covered ground outside probably hid a wonderful old yard with fruit trees, bushes, and perennials. Like a fairy tale, rare nowadays. "But he didn't explain why he felt bad?"

  Magdalena shook her head. "No, but I assumed his parents treated him roughly. You know, back then it wasn't like nowadays. If you take hold of a little one too hard, social services gets flooded with calls. People took care of their own. The boy did seem ashamed of the way he was treated, come to think of it. Embarrassed about it. And I did mention it to one of his teachers when I ran into him one day at the grocery. He simply, you know, shrugged it off, said the boy had a weak character. He might also have been protecting his colleague. The boy's father was a teacher at the school."

  "Did you know his parents?"

  "No, they kept to themselves. They lived in a small house outside of town; you almost never saw his mother shopping or such. And you never saw the father, not in town. Possibly you're aware of our town’s tradition for being very social; we have lots of clubs and organizations. That was how it was back then too. People helped each other. That's why they were thought of as being a bit strange. The truth was, no one knew anything about them."

  "What about the daughter? Eigil's little sister, Jonna. Did you ever meet her?"

  She shook her head. "No. She hadn't started school back then; she was always home. With her mother. But now I know who she is. This is a small town, you know."

  Trokic blocked out his disappointment. He'd been hoping for some sort of explanation, to learn precisely why an eleven-year-old boy saw death as the only way out. But, of course, if anyone had known back then, the police would have known too. At least he felt he had a better picture of Eigil. The question was if his suicide had anything to do with Lukas.

  "A man by the name of Gabriel Jensen filed a complaint about the parents. Do you know him?"

  "I don't, but Eigil did. He told me he'd been in his house once, on the outskirts of town. But Eigil was a little bit afraid of him; he didn't like the way he talked. Vulgar. And he had an insect collection. The boy didn't like that, either."

  Trokic froze; suddenly he was back in Lukas's room. "An insect collection? You don't happen to know what insects?"

  "I do, matter of fact. Eigil told me. The man collected beetles. A lot of them."

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  On her sofa, in the glare of the reading lamp, Annie Wolters broke off from Dostoyevsky and raised her head to listen. The living room was quiet except for the old refrigerator's hum from the kitchen. A familiar sound, reassuring. The sound of home for the past twenty years. But the cat lying on the blanket on her lap had heard something else. The animal's ear had turned slightly, then it had lifted its head and turned to the window. And it had stopped purring. It stared at a point outside the window, its small muscles tense underneath the soft fur.

  After a moment, Annie returned to Raskolnikov, who had just murdered the old pawnbroker with the blunt end of an ax, and she shivered as the century-and-a-half-old hideousness and evil of St. Petersburg rose up out of the pages. The stink of the gutters, the struggle for the daily rubles. She'd always loved Dostoyevsky. This was the third time she'd read the book.

  The cat jumped down, ran over to the door, and started scratching it.

  "Well, you're not going out into that cold, you can forget that," the old woman said. "You'll have to use your litter box."

  She laid down Raskolnikov and her glasses and straightened up on the sofa. Her fingers ached from holding the thick book. Arthritis had settled into her joints the past few years, and it was becoming more difficult all the time to hold things in certain positions. She decided to make a cup of tea with honey from Birger Jensen's hives and warm her hands on the cup.

  When she stood up, she glimpsed a light out in the yard. In the moonlight, it looked as if smoke was coming out of a small window in the shed, and for a moment she thought she saw a flame. Surely, that couldn't be right? Things didn’t set themselves on fire when the temperature was -10 C. And there was no electricity in the shed. But whether it was smoke or something else, it kept seeping out the window. She thought about calling her son or the fire department, but she decided to take a look first.

  * * *

  Out in the hallway, she put on her coat and grabbed the key to the shed. She didn't like bothering people at this time of night, not for something she could take care of herself. Even though they prided themselves here on helping each other. And she did know many of the townspeople; over the years, a number of them had been her piano students, who of course had family who knew her by association. She'd run into many of them at the supermarket or in the various clubs she'd been a member of until a few years back. Annie hadn't grown up in the area, but she'd never regretted living there. She loved the houses, the beautiful church, the town's history, the peace and quiet that, unl
ike in a city, fell over Mårslet every evening. Not even after the recent ugly events did she doubt for one second the basic goodness of the town. It was a tiny paradise, a place to find peace in your soul, and she had made the right decision in moving there. She'd spent her time wisely.

  Only one little thing kept murmuring in the back of her mind. And for some strange reason, she was reminded of it now when she should be concentrating on the shed. The past few days it had been gnawing at her. She had lied to the police the other day. Not about everything, of course. Just when they asked her if she'd seen Lukas lately. You could call it a little white lie. Before she knew what happened, it simply flew out of her mouth. She had seen him, the day before he was found in the creek with the fishing line wrapped around his throat. She could have told that to the officers who rang her doorbell, but then they might have asked, "Was there anyone with him?" And what would that have led to? Lukas hadn't been alone, but the police were from Århus; they didn't understand the town. Residents who had moved there were particularly dependent upon the unity and support of the townspeople. And she hadn't wanted to cause any unnecessary trouble for the person Lukas had been with by babbling about something trivial. It was absolutely out of the question that the person she'd seen him with was a murderer. Impossible. And yet her conscience was poking at her about withholding information from the police. She'd always prided herself in telling the truth. Also, a tiny voice deep inside kept saying, "But is it impossible?" Because she'd seen them, and they'd seen her while running toward the creek. Almost as if it were a game. Tomorrow, she would call and tell the police. Who could say if it might be important in some way to their investigation? She would call it a lapse of memory.

  The freezing air rushed into her small entryway; a puff of wind deposited a miniature snowdrift onto the yellow welcome mat and activated the mobile of clay butterflies hanging from the ceiling. Her cat ran out and executed strange hops in the snow until it reached the sidewalk, which had been shoveled. The weatherman had forecast temperatures of -15 C. that night, but it didn't feel that cold in the doorway. A bit brisk, yes.