Dark September

by Inger Wolf

  After signing in the techs' log book again, he was allowed to pass the barrier tape for the second time that day. When the many pieces of the investigation puzzle were laid out, the physical evidence he, the techs, and the forensic pathologist gathered was often the most reliable. They called this tangible evidence "the silent witnesses." People, on the other hand, lied and led them astray.

  The pond was greenish-brown from fallen leaves and food thrown out to ducks. He knew the area close by might be soggy, yet despite being careful, his yellow sneakers were soon soaked. The cold water slowly seeped up his pant legs. He swore loudly. A duck flew up out of the reeds when he reached the far end of the pond. It was a natural waterhole, about forty yards in diameter. If the murder weapon and her clothes didn't show up around the crime scene, they would have to call in divers to search the dark water, a time-consuming job.

  He checked the ground for footprints, even though he knew one of the techs had already gone over the area. He noticed a small patch of a plant similar to what they'd found on the woman and walked over to take a look. His gut told him it was the same plant, even though it had tiny seeds; its flowers were wilted but not yet dry. Despite this tiny victory, the question was: why did the killer choose those specific flowers? Did it have to do with some sort of ritual? He picked a few, put them in a plastic bag, and washed his fingers in the pond.

  Finally, he stood in the stillness, gazing at the calm water. His eyes followed the many spider webs. Something glinted down in the grass. Instinctively, he grabbed it and held it up to the light. A silver necklace. A few strands of blond hair were stuck to the chain. Someone had been here. He took a DNA kit out of his pocket and dropped the chain in the paper bag.

  Trokic's phone rang. He walked over to his car, sat down inside, and lit a cigarette. Smoking wasn't allowed at the crime scene. The call was from the station. He listened intently while watching his colleagues through the car window. Two minutes later, he joined them.

  "We might have an ID on her," he told Agersund. "A neighbor of a single mother called from an apartment building not far away. A child's been screaming in the mother's apartment for several hours, and nobody answers the door when the neighbor rings the doorbell. He says he's looked in all the windows and can't see anything. He got worried about the young boy, so he called. It's only a five-minute drive. Jasper's on his way; I'll meet him there."

  He might know who she was very soon.

  Chapter Three

  Even in the light morning mist, the apartment building looked clean, and the sand-colored walls contrasted beautifully against the background of the forest. Trokic and Detective Jasper Taurup heard the hollow sound the moment they stepped inside the hall. A low whimper that occasionally turned into sobbing. They rang the doorbell of the first-floor apartment with a name printed on the door: Anna Kiehl. The neighbor, a white-haired man, opened his door and stuck his head out.

  "Police," Trokic said. "Are you the one who called us?"

  "Yeah, he's been screaming for hours, right up until now."

  Trokic rang the doorbell again. "How old is the boy?"

  "I think he's three. Peter's his name."

  "And you don't have an extra key, or know where to get one?"

  "No, otherwise I'd have gone in myself."

  A three-year-old could hardly unlock that type of door, Trokic thought. He let the doorbell ring twice more, then Jasper readied himself to kick the door in.

  "Stop," Trokic said. "Bring the toolbox in from the car. You can't break a door like this, and we can't wait for a locksmith."

  The neighbor hadn't budged an inch. "And you don't want to scare the wits out of the boy."

  "Christ," Jasper said, visibly shaken at the thought of the abandoned child. He ran out to the car and returned with the tools, and a half minute later, the door swung open.

  It was quiet when Trokic stepped into the apartment. His partner bit his lip and rubbed his arm as if he were freezing.

  "Peter," Trokic said, his voice calm; the child must be frightened if he'd really been left alone. No answer. Trokic walked into the kitchen and looked around. The faint odor of cleanser hung in the air. Ammonia and flowers. Everything seemed to be in its place. He walked on into the light-green living room; reproductions of Asger Jorn and Kurt Trampedach hung on the walls. On the coffee table lay an anthology of Modernism, two thick volumes about Renaissance artists, and a children's book with a dragon on the front. The books were worn.

  Trokic called out the child's name again, this time louder, as he systematically checked the few rooms. They were empty and quiet. A digital alarm clock blinked in the bedroom—four zeroes, as if time no longer existed. There was no sign of anyone having slept in the bed, and the open Venetian blinds allowed the dust-free columns of sunlight to stream in. Finally, he reached the child's bedroom and glanced around, but the boy was nowhere in sight. He knelt down and looked under the bed, lifted up the comforter with its red and green animal figures. Nothing. The closet door to the right of the window stood open a crack. Slowly, he opened it and looked inside.

  A little boy with blond hair sticking up stared at a point on the wall behind Trokic. His eyes were green, and he wore a pair of purple Harry Potter pajamas. He sat huddled in a corner, his arms hugging his knees.

  Trokic sighed in relief. "Hi, Peter."

  The boy didn't react. Trokic wasn't confident around young children, and he hesitated, uncertain of what to say. What if he frightened and upset the boy even more? He returned to the living room.

  "I found him in the closet, but he doesn't want to come out."

  "I'll take care of him," Jasper said. "Take a look…is it her?" He pointed to the television then walked into the bedroom.

  Trokic put on a plastic glove and carefully picked the photo up from the back to avoid adding his fingerprints to it. Her hair was shorter, she had more of a suntan, and she was wearing turquoise eyeshadow, but he was certain: this was the woman in the forest. One blue and one brown eye. Anna Kiehl, if the name on the door was correct. A small mouth, a hint of a guarded smile. As if she were wondering about something the photographer had said. Her eyes looked directly at him. Lively, a bit curious. Surrounded by dark eyebrows and eyelids.

  "It's her," he mumbled.

  At last, Trokic looked up and glanced around the living room. Jasper was speaking softly to the boy in the bedroom. Not that his partner had any special qualifications for handling a child in a crisis situation. He was simply better at it than Trokic. And back when they'd realized that (it had only taken a single incident for them to know), Jasper had taken over that particular task. It was never easy to inform someone of a death, but in this case, someone in the boy's immediate family would have to tell him. The important thing now was that until his father or a grandparent arrived, someone had to take care of him and show the appropriate respect for a child whose home suddenly had been taken over by the police.

  "What are you doing here? Has something happened?"

  Trokic started. The voice was thick and husky as if its owner had just woken up from a long sleep.

  Chapter Four

  Detective Lisa Kornelius had just thrown her dingy traveling clothes in a big pile on the floor of her apartment. She walked around naked, looking for her cigarettes as she listened to the messages on her cell phone. Trokic explained in detail the circumstances of the case to which she'd been assigned by Agersund. And now she had to report directly to him.

  Lisa had requested—had earned—a transfer to Homicide. She'd wanted out of her area of expertise, IT work that included cases involving pedophiles and child porn on the net. But knowing that Trokic would be heading up the investigation dampened her enthusiasm considerably. Their paths had crossed on cases a few times, and somehow, though he tried to be friendly, he always managed to make her feel like a trainee who was in the way. She didn't feel that the five years difference in their ages, or for that matter, his experience, justified his attitude. She'd seen just as much shit as he
had, if that's what it came down to. Just a different type of shit. His Croatian roots, and the fact that he lived alone and never talked about anything other than work didn't help her understand him. In short, as things stood now, he was low on the list of her favorite colleagues.

  She glanced through the mail she'd brought in from her postbox and stopped at the sight of a window envelope. "No more unpleasant surprises," she mumbled to herself. She shuddered and tossed the whole pile onto the kitchen table.

  After at last finding a pack of cigarettes, she recalled her promise to herself to not smoke at home. But what the heck. She grabbed a thin silk kimono from the chair, draped it around her slender body, and opened one of the small windows for some air in the crowded apartment. A marble-like mist lay over the city's jumble of asymmetrical roofs. The city seemed deserted. Subdued even, melancholy.

  A woman her age had been killed in the forest. Trokic wanted her to be at the autopsy. She took a drag on her cigarette and tried to prepare herself, though she knew that was impossible. True, she had witnessed two autopsies while in police school, but she had the feeling this would be different.

  She peered at the bird in a wooden cage in the corner and said, "Tell me if you're cold." The large macaw, Flossy Bent P., came from an ex-boyfriend studying Spanish who dumped her to go trekking in South America. She'd done her best to get rid of the red-green bird, not least because it croaked out "That's swell," one of his favorite expressions, several times a day. Finally, she'd given up; apparently, the bird was meant to be a part of her messy apartment the rest of its days.

  She listened to the message on her phone once more, this time taking notes in a small, leather-bound notebook. After delaying as long as possible, she took a quick shower before heading for the station. The autopsy would be performed as soon as possible, Trokic had said, and she had to be there. Whether she wanted to or not.

  Chapter Five

  A pale woman around sixty wobbled into sight. She was wearing a frayed pink dressing gown with white stars, and Trokic caught a faint whiff of alcohol and bacon. But on Sunday mornings, you could smell like practically anything, he had to admit. She reminded him of something he'd seen in an American film. A former diva who had given up on making an impression. Her sunken eyes were still bright blue, contrasting starkly against skin that had seen too much sun. Or maybe too much of everything.

  "Police," Trokic said. "And you are?"

  "I live upstairs. My name is Ursula Skousen. Where's Anna? And Peter?"

  She glanced around the room as if she'd never seen it before. Or at least as if it looked different than usual. She sounded apprehensive, though she likely already had an inkling of the situation, given the empty apartment and the somber faces around her.

  "Not here," Trokic said, trying to keep his voice neutral.

  "What happened?" Her hand flew up to her throat, which startled Trokic.

  While his colleague continued to coax the boy out of the closet, he led Fru Skousen out to the end of the hallway.

  "It can't be true," she said after he briefly explained about the woman in the forest. He emphasized that a final identification needed to be made before they could be absolutely certain it was Anna Kiehl. He didn't mention who would identify her; sometimes it was best not to say too much in the beginning. She looked terrified.

  "I'm afraid it is."

  "How's poor little Peter? And where is he?"

  "We're taking care of him until the family has been contacted. When was the last time you saw Anna?"

  "Yesterday evening. After dinner. Before she went out on her run. I looked after Peter; I do that often when she needs to study."

  "She's a student?"

  "At the university, yes. Anthropology. She's very talented. And that girl's a hard worker."

  "What about later on in the evening?"

  She hesitated, then a guilty expression passed over her face. "It was Saturday last night, you know. I wanted to see a program. She doesn't have a TV, so when Peter fell asleep and she hadn't come back from her run yet, I took the baby alarm upstairs with me and watched the program. He was sleeping like an angel."

  "So, the last time you saw her was…after dinner. What time was that?"

  "It was just after the program with that crazy Englishman started, that's when I went down."

  Trokic squinted in concentration. "Mr. Bean? That would've been at seven."

  He'd also watched the program while eating spicy Turkish sausage with glazed cabbage at the dinner table. Thinking about it, his stomach growled; he hadn't had time for breakfast that morning.

  "If you say so."

  "You didn't worry when she didn't get back from her run?"

  Fru Skousen looked puzzled. "But she did. I heard her later, so I shut the alarm off."

  Trokic gave her a skeptical look.

  "She came back," she said, her voice now firm. "I heard her rummaging about, and I can see she's picked things up around here for once." Trokic let that hang in the air for a moment. That and the scent of alcohol.

  "What about boyfriends?" he asked. "Guests? Did you notice anyone visiting her yesterday?"

  "No, no one. She was always saying that her studies took all her time. A few people stopped by once in a while, but I don't know who they were."

  "Right now, it's very important to us." He didn't mention the sexual angle. "If you happen to think of someone, we'd like to know."

  He stopped to gather his thoughts. He had to get rid of this headache. The station would be in total chaos, and he wouldn't be getting any sleep for a long time. He pressed a few fingers against a spot on his neck to help him concentrate on the woman in front of him.

  She sat down on the steps and looked at him with an inscrutable expression. It was soaking in for her, he thought. The realization that Anna might not have returned.

  "Does she usually run?"

  "Yes. Always the same route. I know because the dear girl told me that she was trying to improve her time. It's about five kilometers long. Three times a week. Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday."

  "The same route? You're sure of that?"

  "Yes. Tuesdays and Thursdays, he's in daycare, but once in a while, I look after him on Saturday. It never takes long. And I'm supposed to call her if there's any problem."

  "Call? While she's running?"

  "Yes, I don't like not being able to get ahold of her, in case something happens to Peter. So, she always has her cell phone with her. I'm not all that young anymore."

  Trokic frowned and made a note. They hadn't found her phone yet. "So, there was nothing at all out of the ordinary yesterday before she went out on her usual run?"

  "Everything was perfectly normal."

  "Did she sound different in any way?"

  "No. I told her it would be dark soon, but she said it wasn't a problem, she could run her route blindfolded."

  She shook her head. He looked into her small eyes; despite the shock she must have been feeling, the situation seemed to be exciting to her in some way, arousing even. Trokic wanted to shake her.

  "I told her there could be godawful types around. Flashers and such. You'd never catch me running around in that forest alone."

  "But you didn't sense anything unusual when she left?"

  Fru Skousen pulled down the sleeves of her robe. "No. Peter was already asleep, and I read a magazine until I went back upstairs. I didn't hear him again."

  Trokic grimaced. He had the feeling she'd fallen asleep in front of the television and therefore couldn't provide more information about yesterday evening. He doubted she'd heard Anna Kiehl return. She had bags under her eyes, and she pulled her robe tighter as he stared at her.

  "We'll need a complete statement from you, and I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to identify her."

  She looked shocked as if a thriller had leaped out of the TV and into the room. "Identify her?" She tasted the words.

  "Yes. We don't want to contact her parents before we're absolutely sure, and there
are a number of other things I want to hear more about. Like the route she ran, her habits, things like that. Detective Taurup can drive you to the station if you'd like."

  "You seem very certain it's her," she said. "It could be someone else. Maybe she's just out buying bread for breakfast. Maybe she met someone she knew, maybe she's…I don't know what, I just can't imagine…"

  He remembered her strange eyes. "Anna has one blue and one brown eye, doesn't she?"

  Fru Skousen slumped.

  Back in the boy's bedroom, his colleague was sitting on the bed. The blond-haired boy lay stiff as a board, staring straight up at the ceiling. Trokic swallowed at the sight of him, so tiny and fragile. He closely resembled his mother.

  "I called for a doctor," Jasper said quietly. "I think the boy's in shock."

  Chapter Six

  Police Headquarters was located in several buildings surrounding a square courtyard. The Criminal Investigations Division occupied the fourth floor in one of the newer, less attractive buildings. Trokic's office, which also served as a small meeting room, looked out on the courtyard. Meager sunlight, even now late in the morning, made the office gloomy and stuffy during winter, the worst time of year for him. When full sunlight seemed so far away. Often, he found himself planning trips to his other homeland, knowing well that Zagreb wasn't much warmer because of its inland climate. It just seemed warmer. As if the sun could break through any second and warm everything up. In Denmark, everything was damp and cold through and through, with no hope of relief.

  Agersund's ample body overflowed the chair across from him, and his gruff voice echoed through the room. "So, the neighbor and her parents identified her. That was quick. Where's the boy now?"