by Willow Rose
“You can say that again,” Morten said. I could tell he was holding back his desire to cry. He had seen several murder victims in his life, but I knew it hurt every time.
“This man is alive,” I said, and pointed at the curtain guy, who still had his head in my lap.
The doctor looked at me. He was sweating heavily. The curtain guy moaned.
“He fainted when he saw the bodies. I think he might have bumped his head on the bed or something when he fell,” I said. “There seem to be a bruise over here, but it’s hard to tell how bad it is with all the blood he has smeared on his face and in his hair. Most of it doesn’t belong to him.”
“I see,” Doctor Williamsen said. “Let me take a look.”
“I think I can sit up now,” the curtain guy, who had told me his name was Peter Wagn, said.
“It’s okay,” the doctor said.
Peter Wagn sat up. I got up on my feet and looked at Morten, while Doctor Williamsen took a look at Peter Wagn’s bruise.
“This isn’t too bad,” I heard the doctor say, then I walked closer to Morten. I wanted him to hold me, but I didn’t want to get too close to the bloody scene. All I really wanted was to get the heck out of there.
“What’s with the shoes?” I asked. “What do you make of that?”
Morten shrugged. “I have no idea. But be careful not to touch anything. I’ve called for the coroners. They’ll be here in a couple of hours, hopefully. They’ll tell us what we need to know.”
There was silence. The doctor told Peter Wagn to stand up and showed him three fingers and asked him how many he saw. Peter Wagn seemed to be better already, I thought. I couldn’t believe I had almost ignored the scream.
I looked at the woman on the bed. She was gorgeous. So young. Maybe in her twenties, I thought. She’d never experienced the joy of having children. I couldn’t imagine a worse fate. It took all I had to not cry…to not lose my grip. I threw a glance around the room and spotted a pair of gold earrings on the dresser, an iPad on a small end table, and the guy’s wallet next to it. It wasn’t a robbery gone wrong. This was a kill, a brutal and bloody kill, and my experience with killers told me that, whoever had done it, seemed to have enjoyed it.
The sparkling shoes gave me the chills. It told me it was planned. It was sick. These young innocent people had been in the prime of their lives.
“Let me take you home,” Morten said. “You need to get some rest.”
I nodded. He put his arm around me as we walked out. The smell of blood was still in my nostrils as we went outside. I took in a deep breath to try and remove it. Morten walked me back to the house and helped me inside. Victor and Maya were still in the kitchen.
“What was it, Mom?” Maya asked. Her eyes were wide and fearful. “What was the screaming?”
I looked at Victor, who was still staring at the table. I had no idea what to tell them. I didn’t want them to worry. They both had enough on their minds. Especially Victor, whose mind never seemed to take a break.
“The police are taking care of everything, kids,” Morten said. “No need to worry. We’ve got it under control. There’s nothing to be afraid of. The neighbors had a little accident, but it’s all taken care of.”
I stared at Morten and was surprised at his ability to lie like that. At first, I didn’t think they would buy it, but they did. Maya relaxed, and Victor got up and ran into the yard to play with his trees.
Morten kissed my forehead. “I better get back. Probably going to work on this all day. I’ll see if I can be here for dinner, alright?”
“Sounds good to me,” I said. “Maybe cooking will help take my mind off of this.”
Morten looked into my eyes. “Are you sure you’re alright? Do you want me to call for your parents?”
“They’re in Copenhagen for the week. A little romantic getaway, they called it.”
“Still madly in love, I take it?” Morten asked.
“You wouldn’t believe it.”
“Good for them.”
“Yeah. Guess so.” I looked into his eyes. I really loved him, but it had been awhile since I had felt madly in love with him. Right at this moment, I was too shocked to feel any other emotion than terror.
He kissed my forehead again. It made me feel like a child. “I better get back. Take care of yourself,” he said.
“You too. See you later.”
13
July 2014
I TRIED HARD not to, but couldn’t help crying. I sat in the kitchen with my coffee most of the morning, wondering about the nice couple I had met so briefly the day before. Victor was playing in the yard, while Maya had gone to her room to be on the computer. I told her to go through all her old pictures in the computer and on her phone and iPad. It was the first time in my life I had actually ordered my child to go on Facebook and Twitter. She hadn’t wanted to go out since we got back, nor had she texted any of her friends yet. But now that she suddenly remembered something from her childhood, she had gained new hope, and so had I.
Plus, it kept her busy, so she didn’t ask more questions about what was going on next door. The driveway and area in front of the neighbor’s house had turned into quite the scene.
The coroners had arrived from Copenhagen and parked their blue vans outside, and it had, little by little, gathered a crowd outside the police blockage. People were talking loudly, asking questions, and spreading rumors about what might be going on.
I heard someone walk past my window telling someone else that she had heard that there had been a fire in the house; the other replied that she heard it was a suicide. The island’s TV-station was present as well, the reporter and cameraman trying frantically to get a comment from one of the officers working the scene. I even saw a journalist and cameraman from the mainland, from one of the national newspapers. They knew it was something big. I had no idea how people like that always managed to know, but they did. Soon, it would make the headlines all over the country.
It didn’t take long before it did. Early in the afternoon, I grabbed my laptop and scrolled through some of the tabloid papers, and it was already plastered all over their front pages.
COUPLE SLAUGHTERED IN THEIR NEW HOME
A NIGHT OF JOY TURNED TO NIGHT OF TERROR
I sighed and scrolled through the articles. I hated this. Somewhere out there, the killer was probably doing the exact same thing…going through the articles about what he’d done, about his accomplishments, enjoying every word of it.
I had known my share of killers, and this one didn’t seem to be any different. The brutality was remarkable, though.
I poured myself another cup of coffee and was staring out the window at the scene, when I spotted Sophia. She was walking towards my house. A second later, she walked inside my front door.
“Have you heard about it?”
She took one glance at me, and then smiled compassionately. “Of course you have. Geez. What a show out there, huh? I can’t believe they’re dead. I mean they just moved in yesterday. It’s crazy.”
“I know. Coffee?”
“Definitely,” Sophia said and sat down. “Make it Irish. I need it. This affair creeps me out.”
I chuckled and found a bottle of whiskey. I poured some in both of our cups. I served it to her and sat down as well.
“Can you believe it?” Sophia said again, after sipping her coffee. “Right in there. Right next to your house, someone was brutally murdered. Probably while we were all asleep. What do you make of it, Emma?”
I shrugged and drank. “I have no idea. But, then again, we didn’t know these people. They might have owed money to someone, or maybe they were freaking drug dealers.”
“So, you think it was, like, a job? Like a hit man or something?” Sophia asked.
“I’m just saying we don’t know,” I said.
“Why didn’t he just shoot them, then? Don’t hit men have big guns that they run around scaring people with?”
“I don’t know, Sophia,” I said, sm
iling at her wonderful childish approach to things. Sophia did watch a lot of movies and TV shows. “Maybe someone was setting an example. Sending out a message of some sort. We don’t know. But, they did buy one of the most expensive houses on the island, and that’s a lot for such a young couple, don’t you think?”
“Yeah. You’re probably right. They have to have been drug dealers or something. Maybe the mob?” Sophia looked almost excited.
“Let’s not get carried away here. Maybe they just borrowed money from the wrong people.”
Sophia scoffed. “That would have had to have been some really wrong people if they ended up like this. I mean, a little punching them around might have done the trick.”
“Mmm…” I said pensively.
“I think I know what you’re thinking.” Sophia said. “You’re thinking, let’s find out, aren’t you?”
I shrugged again and sipped my coffee. “Maybe. But then again, maybe we should just leave it alone. It’s really none of our business.”
“The hell it isn’t,” Sophia said. “It’s all our business. This is our street. This is our island. This is where our children are going to grow up—and, hopefully, they will soon, ‘cause they’re driving me crazy these days. But anyway, I know for myself that I won’t be able to close an eye tonight. If I knew that this was just because these people messed with the wrong crowd, then I could sleep tight at night again, ‘cause then they had it coming, but, if not…then…”
“Then what? You’ll never sleep again?” I asked.
Sophia pushed the computer towards me. “Let’s just say we have a new situation then. But you have the skills. You can hack or crack or hike your way into these people’s lives and give me my sleep back. So, get to it, sister. I’m counting on you.”
“First of all, it’s not at all as easy as you make it sound like. I mean, I guess I could check their bank account, and maybe even get access to their network and computer, if they had the time to set it up, before they…”
I paused and felt awful again. This was terrible, and what Sophia was asking me to do was bad. It really wasn’t any of our business.
“So, you could know all about them in just a few hours, couldn’t you?” Sophia asked. She looked all excited. It made me feel even worse. Like a vulture.
“Look, it’s not like we’re going to rob them or anything,” Sophia said. “I just want certainty. I want to know. And I sure can’t wait for that useless police force of ours to find out. I need to know as soon as possible. Aren’t you the least bit curious?”
I was. I was very curious about who these people were, but to go through their personal stuff only hours after they had been killed, just seemed a little…well a little…no, a lot…it was just so wrong.
Sophia gave me her puppy-dog-eyes, and I laughed. Mostly because she was anything but an innocent puppy. I loved her dearly, but that, she was not. It felt good to laugh, though. Made me feel better.
Sophia pushed the computer closer to me. “Come on. I know you want to. It’s calling to you. Can you hear it? Sophia moved the lid of my laptop to make it look like it was a giant mouth speaking. “Use me, Emma. Use me to find ease. You know you want to. Use the gift. You have the gift. Use it.”
I chuckled. “Okay, then. Just don’t tell any of our neighbors. I don’t want them thinking I might snoop in their affairs as well.”
14
May 2009
LOUISE WAS NERVOUS. She had this tickling sensation in her stomach while sitting on the train from Esbjerg to Copenhagen. Herstedvester Prison was located in Albertslund, just outside of the capital.
This was the place where they put all the most dangerous prisoners in Denmark.
Louise had never visited a prison before. It was all very exciting, and a little scary. But he would be there. And she was looking so much forward to finally seeing him in real life. Up until now, they had been writing letters to each other every week, and she already felt like she knew him better than she had known any man in her life. And he had gotten to know her as well. He really wanted to. He really liked her, he wrote in almost every letter. And he wanted to get to know her better. He wanted to know everything about her. No one had ever wanted to know about Louise before. No boys in school or later in her life had ever wanted to date her or anything. Not even back when she worked cleaning the kitchen at the senior center, a job the city had found for her.
To many people, Louise came off as a little odd. She knew that, and always kept her distance from them. She was different. She even had the doctor’s word for it. She had a disease that she couldn’t remember the name of, but they told her it meant she would never be mentally older than a fifteen-year old. It was okay for her. She didn’t mind, and as long as she took her medicine, she was fine. The city had given her rehabilitation when she was just twenty-three, and after that, she never had to work again, they told her. She didn’t completely understand why she didn’t have to work at the kitchen anymore, but she enjoyed staying home with her cats, so she didn’t complain.
The train rushed across the countryside, and after two hours, she was in Copenhagen, where she found a bus to Albertslund. She had planned the route from home, since it had been many years since she was last in the capital, and it was so easy to get lost.
Her mom and dad didn’t know she was going to visit Bjarke. She had told them over the phone that she was corresponding with him, and it had made them so angry with her. But she didn’t care. What did they know about being young and being in love?
“For the first time, someone actually likes me,” she told them. She was disappointed to learn that they weren’t as happy about this as she was.
“But he’s a very dangerous man,” her mother pleaded. “Please stay away from him.”
“He’s not dangerous, Mother. I know him. He is nice. He is innocent. He never killed anyone.”
“Don’t be naïve,” her mother snorted.
“I’m not,” she had said, and hung up the phone. Her parents were so annoying. They always thought they got to decide everything. For once in her life, Louise wanted to be in charge. She loved this man, and she was so thrilled to go and see him. No one should get in the way of her happiness. So, she decided to simply not tell them. They would just try and stop her.
On the bus, Louise felt the tickling sensation in her stomach again. At the age of thirty-eight, this wasn’t a sensation you felt often. It was her last chance if she was ever going to meet someone. And now she had. Maybe he wasn’t going to be able to be there for her and live with her like other men, but it didn’t matter. He was nice and he liked her. What more did she need?
The bus stopped in front of a huge building and the driver told Louise this was her stop. She got out and stared at the enormous brick wall surrounding the buildings. Again, she felt the butterflies, and she couldn’t help but chuckle. She found her ID and walked towards the entrance.
This is it. The moment has finally arrived. In there, somewhere on the other side of these thick walls is the man of your dreams waiting for you. Just for you.
Louise could hardly contain her excitement.
15
July 2014
“THESE KIDS HAD no money!”
I looked at Sophia who had probably hoped for more exciting news. It turned out to be easier than I thought to get access to the couple’s lives. People really weren’t being very careful about protecting their private information. I’d gained access to the Boegh’s web-bank within an hour.
“Really?” Sophia asked. “How did they afford this house, then?”
“Big loan. They were in over their heads, the way I see it. It’s not hard to see that buying this house was going to eventually give them trouble. They both had good incomes, but this house was expensive, and they even took another loan to cover the moving costs. They were really going to be living tight. They also have another loan to cover the costs of their wedding. These people weren’t being very smart about their money. That’s for sure.”
“Looks like they were a little unrealistic. So, they might have taken other loans outside of the bank, then?” Sophia asked. “Maybe they owed money all over the place?”
“Hmm, they might,” I said, and looked at the screen. “He was a lawyer, though. Doesn’t sound like something a lawyer would do, does it?”
“Anyone can be an idiot with money. Believe me,” Sophia said with a loud laugh. “I’ve met many men who seemed to have it all together on the outside, but were fools when it came to money. It doesn’t matter what your title is. Anyone can get a gambling debt.”
“Definitely. But that’s not something I can see here. There are no big transactions of money within the last five years, or anything else suspicious, as far as I can see. But that doesn’t tell us anything.”
“What else?” Sophia asked.
I tapped on the keyboard. “Well, I did some background on both of them. The woman, Maria Boegh, grew up with her mother, who was on social welfare. They used to live in Vejle on the mainland. I found her files, and she was diagnosed with a lot of stuff, paranoia, social anxiety, and so on, nothing much to note there. The father left when she was just a young child. I found him in Esbjerg, where he is a realtor.”
“What about the guy?” Sophia asked.
“He came from a more solid background. His father was a farmer. Jonas Boegh grew up on a farm outside of Herning on the mainland as well.”
“Farmer? That’s some jump from farmer-boy to lawyer-boy,” Sophia exclaimed.
“I guess. Probably just didn’t want to end up like his parents, constantly doing hard manual labor. Who knows? Anyway, this doesn’t tell us much. It’s all pretty ordinary.”
Sophia leaned back in her chair and put her arms behind her head. My stomach was hurting from too much coffee, and the empty pot on the counter was a sign that we had been at this all day. I looked at the clock and realized it was time for me to start cooking dinner.