Postcard killers

by James Patterson

  How long have you been traveling in Europe?

  Can you tel us about Peter and Nienke?

  "They were so much fun, so nice. We were real y looking forward to the trip to Finland with them. We had a great lunch at that place in the Old Town…"

  The detectives' questions bounced off him, many unanswered, then into the control room.

  Where were you on November twenty-seventh last year?

  December thirtieth?

  January twenty-sixth this year? February ninth? March fourth?

  The interrogation was stopped after just forty-three minutes. To be humane, and to be lawful.

  Malcolm Rudolph was led away to a cel in Kronoberg Prison.

  Chapter 68

  Jacob had to stop himself from smashing his fist through the cement wall. He was forced to take a quick walk out in the corridor to calm himself down, if that was even possible.

  He came back into the control room just as the young woman was taking her place in the interrogation room.

  Sylvia.

  She seemed more col ected than her husband and answered the questions calmly and clearly.

  When she heard that the Dutch couple had been murdered, she put her hands to her face and wept quietly for a moment.

  Then she confirmed Malcolm's story: they'd eaten lunch with Nienke and Peter and were planning a joint trip to Helsinki next weekend.

  "How did you arrange it?"

  "We booked the tickets on the Internet – from a Seven-Eleven shop," she said.

  "Which company?"

  "Silja."

  She smiled.

  "I remember that because it sounds a bit like my name, Sylvia."

  "Where was the shop?"

  "On the long pedestrian street that runs right through the Old Town, Vasterlang-?"

  "Vasterlanggatan?"

  "Yes, that's it."

  One of the detectives got up at once and left the room to check out her story.

  "Who actual y purchased the tickets?" Sara Hoglund asked. "Do you remember?"

  Jacob slapped his forehead.

  "Good God!" he said. "What sort of performance is this? Question time in Sunday school? Jesus, ask her some tough questions, for fuck's sake!"

  Gabriel a came over and stood right next to Jacob. Her eyes were red and her breath smel ed of coffee.

  "Pul yourself together," she said. "You're behaving like a kid. Let Sara and Mats do their jobs."

  "That's precisely what I mean!" Jacob yel ed. "They're not doing their jobs! They're sitting there making nice with her! She's a cold-blooded murderer. Look at her. She's so calm."

  Take it easy, Jacob," Dessie said, putting her hand on his arm.

  He ran his hands through his hair and swal owed audibly.

  On the television screen the interrogation slowly continued. No big ups or downs.

  "Where were you on November twenty-seventh last year?"

  Sylvia Rudolph played thoughtful y with a curl of hair. She was very pretty, though not as striking as her husband.

  "I can't remember offhand. Can I check in my diary? I might have something there."

  Mats Duval switched on his electronic notepad.

  "Let's take something more recent," he said. "Where were you on February ninth this year?"

  Jacob leaned forward to hear better. That was the date of the kil ings in Athens. He knew every murder date by heart.

  "February?" the woman said with a frown. "In Spain, I think. Yes, that's right. We were in Madrid in early February, because Mac had a stomach bug and we had to go to a doctor."

  "Can you remember the name of the doctor?"

  She pul ed a face.

  "No," she said, "but I've stil got the receipt. It was real y expensive, and the doctor was useless."

  Jacob gave a groan.

  The questions meandered on, and Sylvia answered them al in the same 93 calm, matter-of-fact manner.

  "What's the reason for the trip to Europe? Why did you come here?"

  "We're art students," Sylvia said.

  Dessie and Jacob exchanged a quick glance. Final y there was something.

  "We're at UCLA and have taken a year off. It's been real y educational.

  Super. Until today, anyway."

  "How long have you been married?"

  The young woman opened her eyes wide, then burst out laughing. Dessie and Jacob looked at each other again.

  "Married! We're not married. Mac's my twin brother."

  Part Two

  Chapter 69

  Dessie phoned Forsberg at the paper once Sylvia Rudolph had been taken back to her cel.

  "How's it going?" the news editor asked. "Have they confessed yet?"

  "You know I can't answer that. I'm not here as a reporter," Dessie said.

  "What's the reaction at the paper?"

  "We've got extra pages in al of tomorrow's editions. This is huge.

  Everyone's total y focused. We've got newspapers around the world contacting us. There's even a guy from the New York Times sitting at your desk. I hope you don't mind him borrowing it…"

  "I meant the reaction to my letter and the two murders. I can see I'm getting a whole load of crap on the Net."

  "Oh, that. Wel, no one's bothered about that."

  "Come on," Dessie said. "What are people real y saying?"

  Forsberg hesitated.

  "Alexander Andersson is upset and going around talking a load of rubbish. He's saying that you're 'unethical' and 'desperate for headlines' and quite a lot of other stuff, but that's nothing to worry about. He's just jealous of the attention you're getting."

  Dessie closed her eyes.

  She knew it would turn out like this. She told them it would.

  "Are they saying anything in the proper media?"

  Forsberg sighed.

  "Forget about al this, Dessie. The kil ers have been caught. Everyone's happy. Go have a beer or something."

  He hung up.

  The kil ers have been caught. Everyone's happy.

  Dessie desperately wished it were that simple.

  Chapter 70

  At 8.30 that evening, Sylvia Rudolph volunteered that she had new information for the police. The interrogation resumed at her own request.

  Her face was paler now, and she had obviously been crying.

  "I don't real y want to say this," she said, "because I don't like gossip. But I can see we're in a serious situation here, and I can no longer protect…"

  She fel quiet, hesitating about whatever she was going to say next.

  "Who are you protecting?" Sara Hoglund said gently. "You have to tel us now."

  Sylvia Rudolph discreetly wiped away a tear. Then she took a deep breath.

  "I didn't tel you the whole truth earlier," she said, and Jacob and all the others in the control room leaned toward the screen at the same time.

  "We didn't set out for Europe just to look at art. I had to get away from Los Angeles, and Mac offered to come with me."

  Mats Duval and Sara Hoglund waited in silence for her to go on.

  "There's someone who wants to hurt me," she said in a very quiet voice.

  "He's an old boyfriend, although if you ask him, he'l say we're stil together.

  He just can't accept the fact that I am finished with him. He… used to hit me.

  He can't stay away from me."

  Sylvia Rudolph started to cry softly.

  Sara Hoglund put a reassuring hand on her arm.

  "It feels awful to say something so bad about another person," the young woman went on, taking the police chief's hand and squeezing it.

  "But I real y think Billy is capable of doing anything if it would hurt me.

  He might have followed me to Europe."

  Chapter 71

  The investigating team was gathered in Mats Duval 's office.

  They made a hol ow-eyed, determined crowd as they settled on the sofas and chairs.

  "We've gone through their hotel room in the Amaranten," the superi
ntendent said. "A preliminary search hasn't re-vealed anything that can help our case. Quite the reverse, in fact…"

  He looked through his papers.

  "Malcolm Rudolph real y was tested for salmonel a on February ninth in Madrid, the same day the murders in Athens were committed. Here's the receipt."

  Jacob shut his eyes, covering them with his hand. He almost couldn't bear to hear any more.

  Mats Duval went on to summarize the state of the investigation: No drugs had been found in the hotel room, neither marijuana nor any muscle relaxant containing cyclopentolate. No weapons had been found. No knives or scalpels.

  Inquiries at the 7-Eleven shop on Vasterlanggatan confirmed that one of their computers had been used at lunchtime on Tuesday to book a Helsinki cruise with Silja Line for four people. The four passengers were Peter Visser, Nienke van Mourik, Sylvia Rudolph, and Malcolm Rudolph.

  No stolen property, neither that of the victims in Sweden nor from anywhere else in Europe, had been found, and no champagne. In fact, there was nothing to suggest that Sylvia or Malcolm Rudolph had ever been in contact with any of the other murder victims.

  A response from Berlin indicated that no trace of the Rudolph siblings had been found at any of the European crime scenes.

  On the other hand, their fingerprints were found in various places in the room in the Grand Hotel.

  There was complete silence after the superintendent finished with his list.

  "Reactions?"

  "It's them," Jacob said. "I know it is. I don't know how they've done it, or what the purpose of this little charade of theirs is, but they're guilty as fuck."

  "And how do we prove that, sir?" Sara Hoglund said. "They've looked at paintings, which isn't a crime, at least not here in Europe. They've been traveling around and they visited friends in their hotel room. What can we possibly charge them with? And based on what evidence?"

  Jacob recal ed the reassuring hand she had laid on Sylvia Rudolph's arm.

  "We have to go through the confiscated material more thoroughly," he said. "There's something there, something we've missed. Let me help you.

  Please."

  "They turned themselves in," Sara Hoglund said. "They're being very cooperative. They've declined legal representation. They're horrified by the 96 deaths of their friends. And they've got an alibi for the murders in Athens."

  There was an oppressive silence when she stopped talking.

  "This won't hold," Evert Ridderwal said. "We have to have something more than this. I can hold them until lunchtime on Saturday. Then I'll have to let them go."

  Chapter 72

  Jacob stepped onto the street. His whole body was numb and felt hol owed out.

  He couldn't imagine a worse scenario than these two kil ers walking free.

  As if it weren't bad enough that they had kil ed and humiliated their victims, they'd be able to stand there laughing at everyone afterward.

  He had to stop himself from kicking over a motorcycle leaning against the wal.

  "See you tomorrow," Dessie said, walking past him with her bike helmet in her hand.

  "Wait up," Jacob said instinctively, holding his hand out toward her.

  "Hold on…"

  She stopped, surprised.

  He looked at her, his mouth open, apparently not knowing what to say next.

  Don't go, I can't stand being alone anymore?

  I can't go back to my prison cel at the hostel. Not tonight?

  They're laughing at me, can't you hear them laughing at me?

  "Jacob," the journalist said, walking over to him. "What's wrong? I mean, I know what's wrong in a particular sense, but what's wrong?"

  He made an effort to breathe normal y.

  "There are… a few things I've been wondering about. Have you got a couple of minutes?"

  She hesitated.

  "It won't take long," he said. "You've got to eat anyway, haven't you? I'l pay tonight. I'l even make an effort to be civil."

  "I'm so exhausted. I need to go home. We can get something along the way."

  Chapter 73

  They headed off down toward the Central Station side by side.

  "What does it mean that the Rudolphs are being held according to Swedish law?" Jacob asked.

  "The prosecutor can hold them for up to three days."

  "Can they post bail?"

  "No, we don't have that sort of system here. Have you ever eaten a flatbread rol?"

  "A what?"

  They stopped at a little kiosk sel ing hot dogs and hamburgers. Dessie ordered something in her incomprehensible language and let him pay for whatever it was.

  Gradual y the solid panic inside him started to let go and open up some.

  "Here you are," Dessie said.

  She handed him a sort of pancake fil ed with mashed potato, hamburger dressing, gril ed hot dog, chopped dil pickle, onion, mustard, ketchup, and prawn mayonnaise, and al wrapped in foil.

  "Jeezuz," he said.

  "Just eat," Dessie said. "It's real y good."

  "I thought you didn't eat meat," Jacob said.

  She looked at him in surprise.

  "How'd you know that?"

  He took a deep breath and tried to relax his shoulders.

  "Just something I noticed, I guess. What do you think of the Rudolphs?

  Are they our Postcard Kil ers?"

  "Probably," she said. "Mine's vegetarian, by the way."

  They sat on the bench inside a bus shelter and ate the sticky rol s. Jacob, who considered himself an expert in junk food, had to admit she was right: it was real y good.

  He wolfed it down and thought he might even have another 98 hot-dog-withmashed-potatoes thing.

  Dessie Larsson had a calming effect on him. He'd known that almost from the beginning, but he'd never felt it more than he did right now.

  He looked at this woman next to him in the yel ow glow of the streetlights.

  She was actual y very beautiful without being conspicuously pretty. Her profile was classical y clean and simple. She didn't seem to wear any makeup at al, not even mascara.

  "What makes you think they're guilty?" he asked, studying her reaction.

  She glanced at him and wiped her mouth with a napkin.

  "The bodies," she said. "We know they're arranged as works of art, and the Rudolphs are art students. I don't know, but there's something there, in that mix of art and reality. Also, I don't believe them, especial y her."

  He threw the foil wrapping and the smal remains of mashed potato into the bus shelter's trash bin.

  "What do you mean, 'that mix of art and reality'? Either it's art or it's reality, right?"

  Dessie gave him a serious look.

  "It's not unusual for art students to blend them together. We had several cases like that a year or so ago.

  "First there was a girl who faked a nervous breakdown in a psychiatric ward as part of her degree show for the Art School. She had the resources of a whole ward focused on her for an entire night. Anyone who was sick or real y suicidal had to wait because of her act."

  "You're kidding," Jacob said.

  "Nope. Then we had a guy who smashed up a car on the subway. He covered it in black graffiti and broke several windows. He filmed the whole thing and cal ed it 'Territorial Pissing.' Believe it or not, it was exhibited in an art show. The cost to repair the car was one hundred thousand kronor."

  "And I thought we had a monopoly on crazies in the States," Jacob said, looking at his watch. "Speaking of the States, there are a few things I have to check on there. Do you know where I can get hold of a computer?"

  She looked at him, her eyes large and green.

  "I've got one at home," she said.

  Chapter 74

  It was the first time in nearly six months that he'd been in somebody's home.

  It felt odd, almost a bit ceremonial. He took off his shoes by the door because that's what Dessie did.

  She lived in a minimal y furnished four-room apartment wit
h very high ceilings, a lot of mirrored doors, ornate plasterwork, and a wood-burning stove in every room.

  Jacob couldn't help whistling out loud when he entered the living room.

  Three large windows opened onto an enormous balcony with a fantastic view over the entrance to Stockholm harbor.

  "How did you get hold of a place like this? It's great."

  "Long story," she said. "The computer's in the maid's room. There's no maid, of course."

  She gestured toward a little room beyond the kitchen.

  "Have you got any wine around here?" he asked.

  "Nope," she said. "I don't drink that much. Maybe I wil after this."

  She turned the computer on for him. He noticed she smel ed of fruit.

  Citrus. Very nice.

  He sent two e-mails on the same subject: one to Jil Stevens, his closest col eague on the NYPD, and one to Lyndon Crebbs, the retired FBI agent who had been his mentor once upon a time, and maybe stil was.

  He asked them rather bluntly for information about Sylvia and Malcolm Rudolph, residents of Santa Barbara, California, and about Bil y Hamilton, Sylvia Rudolph's former boyfriend, reportedly living somewhere in western Los Angeles. Everything, no matter what it was, was of interest to him, absolutely everything they could find.

  Then he went back out to the kitchen, where Dessie was rummaging around.

  "I found a bottle of red," she said. "Gabriel a must have left it. I don't know if it's stil good."

  "Yeah, of course it is," Jacob said.

  She seemed unfamiliar with how to extract a cork, so he helped her.

  They sat down on the sofas in the living room, leaving the lights off, admiring the stunning view.

  Jacob leaned back, sinking into her cushions.

  A white boat plowed toward the center of Stockholm out on the water.

  "A view like this makes coming home worthwhile," he said. "What's the long story you mentioned?"

  Chapter 75

  Dessiefingered her wineglass. she'd never told anyone the whole truth about how she bought the apartment, not even Christer or Gabriel a. So why should she tel Jacob Kanon?