Postcard killers

by James Patterson

  No one was going to confirm that they had the watch in their shop – that would be admitting to breaking the law – but the people who worked there were only human. If they'd received a watch matching that description, they couldn't help but react.

  "You can't tel me? Omega Double Eagle?"

  Straight denial.

  "Wel, thanks, anyway."

  She broke the cal and dialed the next number.

  Chapter 54

  Unfortunately, Olga, the clerk at nk, had to resign from her job in the jewelry department. She had been very upset and apologetic because she had real y enjoyed working there, but her husband had had a stroke and obviously she needed to hurry back home to look after him.

  The management at NK had been understanding and let her have both the regular wages she was owed and the extra payment she had earned during tourist season. She had returned to Riga the previous evening.

  Jacob slammed his fist down on the jewelry counter, making the gold rings jump.

  "Fucking hel!" he shouted. "I told them. Why doesn't anybody listen to me?"

  The customers around him backed away in alarm.

  "Did she leave an address in Riga?" Gabriel a asked, giving Jacob a look of disapproval. "I'm listening to you, so you don't have to shout."

  "I do too have to shout. It makes me feel better."

  The head of the jewelry department went over to the office to check, but Jacob couldn't be bothered to wait. The address Olga had given would be false.

  And there was no husband who'd had a stroke either.

  He waited on the sidewalk outside, rubbing his eyes with his palms. 75 People brushed past him on both sides. They were laughing and talking.

  Someone was playing a mouth organ.

  It was him. It was the fair-haired man on the video. Jacob was sure of it.

  Kimmy's kil er, that was what he looked like. But then he looked again more closely.

  The man with the mouth organ wasn't the kil er.

  Suddenly Gabriel a came running out to the sidewalk with her cel in her hand.

  "Duval just cal ed," she said. "Dessie's found the Omega."

  Jacob spun around and stared at her.

  "What! Where?"

  "A pawnshop on Kungsholmstorg, a square just a couple of blocks from police headquarters."

  "They've got some nerve," Jacob said, running toward their car, a Saab that had seen better days.

  Gabriel a unlocked the car with the infrared as she ran. She got in, stuck a blue light on the roof, and started the siren as she steered the car into heavy afternoon traffic.

  Chapter 55

  The pawnshop was at a busy intersection and looked like pawnshops usual y do, a bit messy, uncomfortable, apologetic.

  They parked on a pedestrian crossing right outside the shop, then hurried inside.

  On the front counter stood a digital camera, a box containing an emerald ring, a few other pieces of jewelry – and an Omega in steel and gold in a mother-of-pearl case.

  Mats Duval, impeccably dressed in a blazer and chinos, was standing with Dessie, the shop's owner, and two detectives. Duval was leaning over a computer screen.

  "Is he on video?" Jacob asked breathlessly.

  "We're hoping he is," the superintendent said.

  "What ID did he use?"

  Duval pushed the pawnbroker's ledger toward him without taking his eyes from the screen.

  The items on the counter in the shop had been pawned by a man who had used an American driving licence as his ID, issued in the state of New Mexico in the name Jack Bauer. He had received 16,430 kronor in total.

  "Is this some sort of fucking joke?" Jacob asked. "How the hel can 76 someone get away with cal ing himself Jack Bauer? Jack Bauer! The TV show? Twenty-four?"

  "Here he is," Mats Duval said, turning the screen to face Jacob.

  A tal man in a long, dark coat, with brown hair, a cap, and sunglasses, was shown signing the agreement on the counter in the shop.

  No wel -built blond. No Brad Pitt. No Jack Bauer.

  What had he been expecting?

  "I presume you recognize him," Mats Duval said.

  Jacob gave a quick nod.

  It was the same man who had been photographed taking money out of ATMs on the murder victims' credit cards throughout Europe.

  Chapter 56

  "Okay, then," the superintendent said a few minutes later.

  "We'l meet again at eight o'clock tomorrow morning. You're al working hard. We'l get these people."

  He stood up and walked quickly from the shop without looking back. The two detectives on his team fol owed close on his heels.

  Dessie was left standing by the pawnbroker's desk together with Jacob and Gabriel a. On a shelf next to the computer was a copy of that day's Aftonposten. Her own words screamed out its battle cry: "Accept My Chal enge – If You Dare."

  She turned the paper over to avoid having to see it. Gabriel a noticed her doing it.

  "I agree that publishing the letter wasn't very smart," she said, nodding toward the paper.

  Dessie took a deep breath and pul ed on her knapsack.

  "See you tomorrow," she said abruptly, heading for the door.

  "I've got the car," Gabriel a cal ed after her. "I can give you a lift."

  Dessie kept walking.

  "It's okay," she said. "I've got my bike at police headquarters. It's close.

  I'm fine."

  She opened the door and stepped out onto the sidewalk.

  "I'l walk with you," Jacob Kanon cal ed, catching up with her.

  "I can put the bike in the back," Gabriel a said, jogging after them.

  Dessie spun around.

  "It's okay," she said. "I'l be fine. Thanks, anyway."

  It was evening. The air was damp and cool, and the sun was low in the sky.

  "Whatever you want," Gabriel a said, getting into the Saab and speeding off, sour as hel.

  With a sense of melancholy, Dessie watched the car drive away.

  "You were the one who finished it, weren't you?" Jacob said.

  She gave a deep sigh.

  "Hungry?" the American asked.

  She thought for a moment. Then she nodded. "Strangely, I am."

  Chapter 57

  They picked a cheap italian restaurant with red-checked tablecloths and pasta and pizza on the menu. Jacob ordered a bottle of red wine from Tuscany and poured them each a glass. "This is good for whatever ails you," he said.

  Dessie took a smal sip, leaned back, and shut her eyes. "I doubt it very much, but thank you."

  So far the letter had done no good at al. Had Gabriel a's unpleasant comment been justified? Had she been completely crazy to write it?

  "You did the right thing," Jacob said, reading her thoughts. "We've already ruffled their feathers. They're going to make a mistake. Cheers."

  Jacob ordered Parma ham and spaghetti Bolognese. Dessie the insalata caprese and cannel oni.

  "I heard you were the one who actual y found the watch," he said. "Good thinking."

  She was suddenly embarrassed.

  "They aren't just kil ers," she said. "They're petty thieves, too."

  "True, but why did you make that connection?" the American asked, pouring more wine into his glass.

  Dessie laughed, not even sure why she thought it was funny.

  "Remember I told you I was writing my thesis? Wel, it's on the social consequences of smal -scale property break-ins. Let's just say it's been an interest of mine since I was a child."

  Jacob raised his eyebrows quizzical y. He had a very expressive face.

  When he got angry, his face turned black with rage, when he was happy, he glowed like a woodstove, and when he wasn't sure of something, like now, his face looked like a big question mark.

  "I grew up with my mother and her five brothers. My mother worked as home help al her life, but my uncles were vil ains and bandits, the whole lot of them."

  She glanced at him to see how he reacted.

&
nbsp; "'Home help'?" he said.

  "Helping old people, sick people. None of my uncles married, but they had loads of kids with different women."

  Jacob ate some bread. He didn't wolf down his food like some men she knew.

  "What's the name of the town you grew up in?"

  "I come from a farm in the forests of Adalen," she said. "That's part of Norrland, where the military were cal ed in to shoot workers as recently as the nineteen thirties."

  The American looked at her stonily.

  "I'm sure they must have had a good reason," he said.

  Dessie's mozzarel a caught in her throat. "What did you say?"

  "The military don't usual y shoot their fel ow citizens for no reason,"

  Jacob said.

  Dessie couldn't believe what she was hearing.

  "Are you defending state-sanctioned murder?"

  Jacob stared at her, simultaneously concentrating on the chewy ciabatta.

  "Okay," he said. "Wrong topic of conversation. Let's move on."

  Dessie put her cutlery down. "Do you think it's okay to shoot people for demonstrating against their wages being cut?"

  Jacob held up both hands in a disarming gesture.

  "Shit, I didn't know you were a communist."

  And I didn't know you were a fascist," Dessie said, picking up her knife and fork again.

  Chapter 58

  Dessie honestly didn't know what to make of Jacob Kanon.

  He was an entirely new species to her, both shut off and extremely demonstrative at the same time. The way he moved seemed a bit clumsy and uncomfortable, as if he weren't quite house-trained.

  "Tel me more about your uncles."

  Dessie pushed aside the plate of cannel oni.

  "Two of them drank themselves to death," she said. "Uncle Ruben was beaten to death outside the church in Pitea the night before May Day three years ago. He had just been released from a stretch in Porson, in Lulea."

  She said it to shock him, but Jacob just seemed amused.

  "Were they often inside?"

  "Mostly short sentences. They only managed one big thing in the whole of their miserable careers: raiding a security van where they discovered 79 considerably more money than they'd been expecting."

  The waiter came over to ask if they wanted dessert.

  They both said no.

  "Were they convicted?" Jacob asked. "For the security van job?"

  "Of course," Dessie said, grabbing the bil. "Although some of the takings were never found."

  "Let me get that," Jacob said.

  "Stop being so macho," Dessie said, taking out her Amex card. "This is Sweden. Men stopped paying for dates in the sixties." She motioned the waiter over and handed him her card.

  The American poured the last of the wine into their glasses with a grin.

  "So this is a date, is it?" he asked, his eyes twinkling. "That's interesting."

  Dessie looked at him in surprise.

  "This? A date? Of course it isn't."

  "You said it was. You said this was a date. 'Men stopped paying for -'"

  Dessie shuddered.

  "That was a figure of speech. This isn't a date. This wil never be a date."

  She signed the credit-card slip and said, "Let's go. It's late."

  They stepped out into a light blue evening that would soon be night.

  "Where are you staying?" Dessie asked as they walked toward the entrance of police headquarters on Polhemsgatan.

  "Langholmen," he said. "A youth hostel, actual y."

  "It used to be a prison," Dessie said.

  "Thanks for the reminder," Jacob said. "I know."

  She got her bicycle, and with Jacob walking alongside, she started slowly cycling home through the Stockholm night. A low mist hung over the waters of Riddarfjarden, thin veils sweeping in and hiding the sounds of the city: the cars, the drunken shouting, the music coming from open windows.

  He kept her company al the way to her door.

  She looked up at him and he was no more than a silhouette against the moon.

  "See you tomorrow," he said, raising a hand in farewel as he disappeared down toward Gotgatan.

  Chapter 59

  Wednesday, June 16

  Theletter arrived with the first delivery of the morning.

  Dessie recognized immediately both the envelope and the writing on it.

  This time it hadn't been preceded by a warning postcard.

  She opened it with her letter knife, wearing gloves on her trembling hands. She was in the presence of the police forensics team and they made her jumpy.

  The envelope contained a Polaroid picture, just as the last one had.

  "I'l take care of that," said one of the officers, grabbing the picture from her.

  She had time to register the bodies and the blood.

  She went over to her desk and sank down in the chair. An intense feeling of uneasiness started to spread from her stomach out to her limbs. "Oh, dear god, dear god," she muttered softly.

  The text she'd written for the paper had evidently worked. The kil ers had broken their pattern. They had carried out more murders in Stockholm instead of moving on to the next city.

  The realization made it hard to breathe.

  She had caused the deaths of two more innocent people.

  How could she live with herself after this?

  Forsberg, the news editor, red-eyed with lack of sleep, sat down on a chair beside her.

  "Feeling rough?" he asked.

  She looked at him without replying.

  "Maybe you should take the day off? Get some rest? You real y ought to go home."

  She stared at him, speechless. Day off? Rest?!

  He drummed his fingers on her desk for a few seconds before getting up and going back to the news desk.

  Dessie stayed where she was until Mats Duval, Gabriel a, and Jacob Kanon arrived at the office. They got there less than five minutes apart, Duval and Gabriel a looking white as paper.

  "What have I done?" she said, looking up at Jacob. "What damage have I caused?"

  He looked at her with a surprisingly calm expression.

  "Aren't you crediting yourself with a bit too much? They did this, not you."

  She quickly stood up, aiming for the restroom, but Jacob caught her with a firm grasp on her upper arm.

  "Stop it," he said. "This is a blow, but it's not your fault. Instead of feeling sorry for yourself, help us."

  "The conference room," Mats Duval said, moving past them. "Right now, 81 al of you."

  Gabriel a walked after the superintendent, giving Jacob a sharp look.

  Dessie, who was suddenly extremely conscious of Jacob's hand on her arm, shook herself free and fol owed the police through the sports section of the room.

  Mats Duval raised an eyebrow in surprise when she sat down with the investigating team around the table.

  "Our work is covered by confidentiality laws," he said.

  "First the kil ers dragged me into this nightmare," Dessie said. "Then you did the same. So now I'm here, whether you like it or not."

  The superintendent frowned.

  Jacob threw his arms out.

  "So let her join in. How hard can it be? She's been useful so far. We owe her something."

  Mats Duval straightened his back.

  "If you stay as an observer only. You can't write anything about what we talk about. You're clear about that?"

  "Unless you order me to, right?" Dessie said sharply.

  The superintendent let the subject drop. One of the detectives handed around enlarged copies of the latest photograph.

  "Okay, we've got another double murder," Mats Duval said, "but so far no bodies. So what do we have? Can anyone identify the scene of the photograph?"

  Chapter 60

  Dessie took a deep breath and stared hard at the photograph in front of her.

  A naked young man was lying on his stomach along the back of what looked like a leather Chesterfield-style sofa.
Both of his hands were stretched above his head. On the left side of the sofa sat a young woman with her hands placed demurely in her lap.

  On her head she was wearing Mickey Mouse ears.

  The sofa was in front of a large window. The picture had been taken from a low angle, meaning that the bodies were shot with the daylight coming from behind them.

  "Mil esgarden," Gabriel a said.

  Mats Duval looked at her.

  "Do you recognize the setting?"

  She nodded her head.

  "The artwork they're imitating. The man is supposed to be the flying statue in the garden outside. The woman might represent one of the animal sculptures that were in an exhibition there this past winter."

  "Get the security recordings from Mil esgarden," the superintendent said, and one of the detectives disappeared through the door. "What does this business with works of art mean in this context?"

  "We don't know yet," Gabriel a said. "So far it's just a theory."

  Dessie squinted and held the picture closer to her face. Either she needed glasses or the picture was bad.

  "I don't know, but maybe…," she said hesitantly.

  "What?" Jacob said.

  She pointed at a shadow next to the man's forehead.

  "There," she said. "That could be a balustrade or a railing. Because it's so high up, it must be on the roof of a tal building."

  "And?"

  "Railings like that are unusual on residential buildings in Stockholm, unless they're to stop snow from sliding off the roof. This must be some official building."

  "For instance?"

  She hesitated and fiddled with her pen.

  "Wel, I might be wrong…"

  "Jesus!" Jacob shouted. "Spit it out!"

  Dessie jumped and dropped her pen.

  "The Royal Palace," she said.