Murder on Embassy Row

by Margaret Truman

  The guard made a phone call, and a young officer appeared from behind the statue, crossed the courtyard, and said to Morizio, “Right this way, sir.” They retraced his steps over pavement of uneven squares and rectangles, went around the statue, and entered an interior hallway. Morizio realized the building was in the shape of a trapezoid as they climbed stairs leading to a section identified by the sign—Kriminalpoliti. The young officer stepped back and allowed Morizio to precede him into the area. “In there,” he said, pointing to an office. “Thanks,” Morizio said. He stopped at the open doorway and saw Mikkelsen behind his desk stuffing papers into a briefcase.

  “Leif.”

  Mikkelsen looked up, smiled and said, “Godmorgen, Sal.” He came around the desk and they shook hands. “What a pleasant way to conclude a thoroughly unpleasant night. Come, sit down. Oh, I mentioned breakfast. Hungry?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then we go eat.” He put on a black topcoat and gray hat and led Morizio back the way he’d come, stopping only to tell a female officer, “I will be back soon.”

  Five minutes later they were seated at a table in a small, attractive restaurant a block away, on the corner of Rysensteensgade and AankerHeegarde. It was called Politigaarden. They sat in the front section; a raised area to the rear contained the bar. The small tables were covered with crisp green tablecloths. A flowered lampshade with fringe hung over the table. On the walls were large black-and-white vintage photographs of Danish policemen.

  “It is handy,” Mikkelsen said.

  “Yeah, like Jaybird’s. Remember?”

  “Of course I do.” He rubbed his hands together, squinted across the table at Morizio, and said, “You look as anxious as you sound. What’s wrong?”

  Morizio started to tell the story but the waitress interrupted him. “Bacon and eggs,” he said to Mikkelsen. “To bacon og aeg,” Mikkelsen told the woman.

  She brought coffee. Now, Morizio told Mikkelsen in detail of everything that had happened, going right back to the beginning, to Washington and Ambassador James’s murder. Mikkelsen listened impassively. When Morizio was finished, and the breakfast plates had been cleared and fresh coffee poured, the Dane sat back, took out a pipe, tamped tobacco in it, lighted it, puffed, and said, “How terrible. I’m sorry. I have followed the James murder but only through gossip and an occasional report. Interpol informed us when you put out your APB on the young Iranian, Hafez, but when we learned he’d been executed in Iran, we cancelled it, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “What can I do, Sal?”

  “Help me find Connie.”

  “All right. Let’s go back to the office and get the missing person people on it.”

  Morizio hesitated.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “That’ll take too much time,” Morizio said. “I think we’ve got to move faster. Look, Leif, obviously Inga Lindstrom is involved. The tape is clear that Connie was there and was abducted from that warehouse.”

  “It doesn’t mean Lindstrom had anything to do with it. I’m afraid, Sal, that I’d need more than the tape to go on to put the pressure on her. She’s a leading citizen, a solid businesswoman. Besides, you say you looked the place over this morning, found nothing.”

  “But if we press her, Leif, maybe she’d…”

  Mikkelsen shook his head. “I know how you feel, but it’s wrong, at least from our position. You say the male voice on the tape spoke Arabic. We could fan out through the Arab community here and…”

  This time it was Morizio’s head that shook. “Same problem, Leif, too much time. What Connie found last night is worth killing for. It always has been.” He answered the Dane’s puzzled expression. “I know damn well that all of this is bound up in the murder of Ambassador James and Paul Pringle.”

  “You’re suggesting that Inga Lindstrom is part-and-parcel of that?”

  “Yeah, I am. I think it has to do with illegal caviar and drugs and Iran and Copenhagen. Connie talked into the tape, Leif, about finding cocaine in the bottom of those caviar cans, some addressed to Lindstrom herself, some to Berge Nordkild in the States who’s just been busted on narcotics.”

  Mikkelsen drew on his pipe and looked at the ceiling. He seemed to be going through a weighty internal debate about whether to say what he was thinking. He put his elbows on the table, the pipe still in his mouth and held by both hands, glanced left and right, looked Morizio in the eye and said slowly, quietly, “We’ve been working with your DEA people, Sal. We know about Lindstrom and the drugs from the Middle East.”

  “You have?”

  “It’s top secret, and we’re close to a resolution. The tape could be valuable to us in building our case.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure it could, but right now I don’t care about cases. I care about Connie. I want her back.”

  “Yes, I understand. I was less than truthful before about Lindstrom. The truth is I don’t want to jeopardize our case.”

  Morizio’s initial reaction was anger, but then he reminded himself that he probably would have taken the same position, had the roles been reversed. Mikkelsen was in a tough spot, between a rock and a hard place. He had his official responsibilities, yet wanted to aid a friend. He tried to help the Dane out of his dilemma by saying, “Let’s forget Lindstrom for now. What I want to know, Leif, is where Connie might be. If she’d been abducted—and the tape doesn’t leave any doubt about that—where might she be? Where would they take her, hide her… kill her?”

  “Christiania.”

  “What’s that?” He then remembered Lake talking about the free city within Copenhagen, and that her Aunt Eva had been instrumental in bringing it about. “Yeah, I know something about it, Leif. That’s your best guess?”

  “Yes, of course. It’s filled with criminals, people running, hiding.”

  “Okay,” said Morizio, “let’s assume she’s there. That narrows it down. Can we go in, really hit the place, conduct a sweep-and-search?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s off limits to us, unless we obtain a court order. Christiania is sacred ground legally.”

  The irony of it hit Morizio hard. It was like an embassy, a little country unto itself, free from whatever rules applied outside. “How long for a court order?” he asked.

  “Days.”

  “Days?”

  “Our courts are very sensitive about Christiania, Sal.”

  Morizio’s anger permeated every word. “Are they so goddamn sensitive about innocent people being murdered?”

  “Yes, that, too, Sal. Please, I understand your feelings, but these are the rules.”

  “Rules.”

  “Rules. Yes, rules, Sal. They can be changed—should be changed—but until they are, we live by them, you and I. From what you told me you broke the rules back home and have ended up suspended. Sometimes it is worth it to break rules and take the consequences, but take them we must. No, I cannot order a search of Christiania, at least not quick enough to satisfy you.”

  “All right, what can you do?”

  “Talk to key people. We have a few officers of Middle Eastern ancestry who have good contacts within that community. They can ask around. I’ll put them to it immediately. There are others whom I can call and ask questions of. I will do that, too.”

  “And what do I do?”

  Mikkelsen shrugged, tapped ashes from his pipe into an ashtray, and put the pipe in his pocket. “Go to the hotel. I’ll call you in a few hours.”

  “I can’t just go back and sit around the room.”

  “Have a drink. Nap.”

  “Come on, Leif.”

  He smiled. “Here I am suggesting to you what I could not do under similar circumstances. I’m sorry. Come back with me.”

  “No, I will go to the hotel. I’ve got some other things I want to do. You’ll call me if you hear anything.”

  “Of course.”

  They walked back to the entrance to police headquarters. M
orizio handed Mikkelsen a wrinkled photo of Lake. A freezing rain had started to fall. It stung their faces. “Sal, I will do everything possible,” Mikkelsen said, shaking Morizio’s hand.

  “I know you will. Thanks.”

  “I’ll call you in a few hours.”

  Morizio walked to Puggaardsgade and searched for a taxi. They were scarce, as in every city when the weather turned nasty. He walked in the direction of the d’Angleterre until he came across a cab discharging a passenger, slumped in the back seat of the brand new Opel Rekord, and gave in to his fatigue. The driver literally had to yell at him after they’d pulled up in front of the hotel.

  He called Lake’s Aunt Eva. The phone rang a dozen times before she answered. “Sorry to wake you,” he said, “but it’s important.”

  “Did she arrive?”

  “No.”

  “Where is she?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out. Look, Aunt Eva, we don’t know each other but we have something in common, and that’s loving Connie. I want your help.”

  “I will do anything.”

  “Come to the hotel.”

  She groaned. “I just went to bed an hour ago.”

  “Yeah, I’m tired, too. Look, if we don’t act fast Constance Lake will be dead.”

  Eva gasped.

  “So come on, Eva, get over here.”

  “Within the hour.”

  They sat in his room and he told her what he wanted, access to Christiania. “You’re a big shot there,” he said. “They trust you, know you’re not out to hurt them. Take me there… ask around… see if anyone’s willing to talk about an American woman being held there against her will.”

  “Yes, I will do this,” Eva said. She stood, went to a mirror, dabbed at hastily applied makeup with a Kleenex, and dropped it on the dresser.

  “Runs in the family,” Morizio said as he deposited it in a basket.

  “What?”

  “Not important. Come on.”

  They drove in Eva’s Saab down Borsgade, across Knippels Bro and to Torvegade, then past the baroque 1682 Our Saviour’s Church and to the entrance to the free city, Christiania. Morizio observed it from the car. The former military barracks looked as though they’d collapse in a gentle breeze. The entrance was strewn with debris. Dozens of people congregated in front, Hell’s Angels types with spikes protruding from black wrist bands and belts, young women, some with babies in sacks on their backs, a couple of men asleep against the wall even though the freezing rain continued to fall, and dogs—dogs everywhere, skinny and yellow-eyed, listless and without obvious attachment to anyone.

  “This is it, huh?” Morizio said.

  They approached the gate, and Morizio suddenly felt very out of place and vulnerable, the way he did on a dance floor. Their progress was scrutinized, he in his Burberry raincoat and shined shoes, Eva in a shocking pink slicker with rhinestones at the collar and alligator boots. No one challenged them, however, which Morizio had expected, and they were soon inside, following rutted dirt roads between the dilapidated buildings, stepping over puddles, eyes glancing left and right at clusters of people whose dress, manner, and attitude established them as belonging there.

  “Eva.”

  They turned to face a young woman with brunette hair and wearing a flowing flowered skirt and bulky tan knit sweater. Morizio was glad that someone had recognized Eva.

  “Bettina,” Eva said warmly, grabbing the girl by the shoulders. “I was hoping to find you.”

  Morizio looked up at one of the barracks and wondered whether Connie was in one of its rooms, bound and gagged, raped, mutilated, dead.

  “Sal, this is Bettina,” Eva said. Morizio nodded at the girl, who was very pretty and whose smile was wide and open. “Bettina sits on the Christiania Council,” Eva said. “She’s part of the political structure here.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t put it that way,” Bettina said. “I don’t like politics.”

  Eva laughed. “Even here there is a need for rules, huh, Bettina? I want to ask you something.”

  “Hvad?”

  Eva took her arm and they walked to where they could speak privately. Morizio glanced at them from time to time but didn’t want to appear to be eavesdropping. He watched the comings and goings of the counterculture village. There were makeshift stands from which drugs were sold openly. Others offered food, and one featured weapons—knives in assorted sizes and styles, handguns, rifles, whips, bamboo blow-guns, and metal discs with razor-sharp blades meant to be tossed like a Frisbee.

  Eva returned. “Come,” she said. Morizio nodded at Bettina and followed Eva.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  “She’s here.”

  “You know that?”

  “Yes. Come, let’s walk a bit.”

  She led him to a torn, faded yellow and blue awning supported by four tent poles. Beneath it sat four couples. A girl nursed a baby while her mate drew on a water pipe. The other couples seemed dazed, their eyes lifeless, staring into the light, cold rain as though it might provide a vision. Eva said in a hoarse whisper, whisper, “She is here with a young Arab. They arrived last night.”

  “Where?”

  “In a building used by transients. There are many of those.”

  “I don’t doubt it. Take me.”

  “Maybe we should think a bit before going.”

  “Think about what?”

  “About what to do when we get there. It is not like knocking at someone’s door to borrow a bottle of akvavit.”

  Morizio had to smile. She was right. He couldn’t call Leif Mikkelsen and arrange for a S.W.A.T. team to circle the building. It occurred to him that he couldn’t do that in Washington, either. MPD didn’t have S.W.A.T. teams. He was weaponless. He turned and looked back at the weapons stand. “Excuse me,” he said.

  “How much?” he asked the bearded young man at the stand, pointing to a crude sawed-off shotgun with a scarred buttstock.

  “Fem hundrede.”

  “English.”

  “Fifty U.S.”

  “Here.” Morizio tossed two twenties and a ten on the counter. “Shells?”

  “Ti.”

  “Come on, English.”

  “One dollar each.”

  “Give me six.” He laid another six dollars down. The vendor handed Morizio the shotgun. He examined it. It was a pump-action breechload. He pumped it, injected shells, jerked it shut. He looked at the young man and said, “It had better work.”

  “It works,” he said, smiling. “But not here. No shooting here.”

  “Yeah, right.” He slipped the shotgun under his coat and rejoined Eva.

  “I don’t like that,” she said, having observed the transaction.

  “I’ll worry about that.”

  “There is no violence here in Christiania.”

  His expression was one of incredulousness. “Connie is kidnapped and held against her will and you tell me violence is against the rules?”

  “I simply tell you of the rules here. It was part of the agreement with the city government. If there is violence, it is reason for the city police to enter. No one wants that.”

  “I’d love it. Let’s go.”

  “All right.”

  “Before we do, though, how come you found out so easily that Connie was here?”

  Eva smiled. “Christiania is no different than any other community. They need believers like me to stand tall for them when there is trouble. What is it you say in English, ‘Scratch each others’ back’?”

  “Something like that.”

  They left the protection of the awning and followed the winding, muddy road to the far end of the commune. Eva stopped, pointed. “See? That red building is where the visitors stay. Bettina tells me that Connie and the Arab are there.”

  It occurred to Morizio that if they were observed by the Arab from a window, it might panic him into doing something foolish with Connie. He also decided he didn’t need Eva any more, but didn’t want her too far
away in case some negotiation in Danish was necessary. He pointed to a low board shack to the left of the red building. “Go there and wait,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “For me to call you, in case I need you.”

  “I will go with you.”

  “No, please, listen to me. I appreciate everything you’ve done…” He wanted to say “Get lost,” but was more tactful. “Just do as I say. Did your friend tell you what room Connie was in?”

  “She said the top floor, southeast.” She pointed to a corner of the red building.

  “See you later,” Morizio said as he quickly walked toward a row of tents, hoping the Arab hadn’t seen the American with the raincoat and shiny shoes. If not, Morizio had surprise on his side. If he had…

  He passed the tents until reaching a point where the entrance to the red building was only twenty feet away, pressed the shotgun against his body, and crossed the open area. He paused in the doorway, looked back, saw that Eva had done what he’d said, and turned his attention to the lobby of the red building. It was dismal and in disrepair, and there was the strong odor of cabbage, garlic, and urine. A stairway was ahead of him. He crossed the lobby and started up, pausing at the second-floor landing to remove the shotgun from beneath his coat. “You’d better work, goddamn it,” he mumbled as he continued his climb, hoping he wouldn’t meet anyone coming down.

  When he reached the top floor his needs shifted. Now, he wanted someone who could pinpoint the room in which Lake was being held. He got his wish. A door leading to a communal bathroom opened and a short, chubby girl stepped into the hall. Morizio grabbed her by the neck and shoved her against the wall, the shotgun pressed to her temple. He wished he knew Danish, said in English, “Not a word or you’re dead. Understand?”