The Midnight Witness

by Sara Blaedel

  Høyer was sitting across from her now, and she turned to him. “Yes, I am. I’m not going to stand for this. It can’t be right that a story isn’t good enough just because you don’t squeeze every last drop out of someone. This is her life we’re talking about, their lives.”

  “We’re dropping the photo. I’ve spoken with Holck. He’s not happy at all; the only reason he went along with it is because the photos we have aren’t good.”

  Camilla sighed. That was a weak argument, bad photos. What about doing the right thing? Where was that in all this? “So, what will you do?”

  “We’ll use the photos Christian took; they’re good.”

  “What did Holck say?”

  “You’re a bitch who should get a warning because you’re a conniving little weasel.” He winked at her.

  She grimaced. “Very funny.”

  “It might be a good idea for you two to sit down and have a chat.”

  “Dream on. Or else he’ll have to come to me. He’s not the one out there in the real world. It’s easy for him, sitting on his fat ass, ordering people around in here. He doesn’t have to deal with everything.” Camilla was just warming up.

  “He’s been there, been out there, but you’re right. It all looks easier from inside here.”

  She suspected the mother-and-son photo had been dropped only because it had reached the point where Høyer himself would have to twist Helle’s arm. Then suddenly it wasn’t so important after all. She snorted.

  “Did you get anything out of Willumsen?”

  “He wants us to print what Frank was doing late Saturday evening. They’re hoping someone saw him.”

  She still felt she’d been pushed around, and she decided not to mention that Willumsen had encouraged her to speak with the person leading the drug investigation. There was no reason to get anyone excited; it might be nothing more than an off-the-record chat. And given what had just happened, Høyer might say to hell with it and pressure her to write about something she’d promised to hold back. No way she’d do that. She’d talk to Birte Jensen first and then decide what to give him.

  And was it okay for her not to tell Holm about this? After all, it was his beat. She decided that could also wait until she knew what came out of the conversation. “How big an article are we talking about?”

  Suddenly she was tired. Christina was home with Markus; they were going to make crepes. The young girl had been a helper at Markus’s day care center his first year there, until she started at the university.

  Back then Camilla hadn’t realized how lucky she was to nab Christina, but in the past two years she’d almost become part of the family. Or at least a lifeline, as Camilla put it. At first Christina had discreetly asked if it was okay to take Markus to the Naval Museum to see the submarine, or to the fire station. Camilla had been absolutely thrilled. She’d never taken her son to the Naval Museum—in fact, she hadn’t even known it existed.

  “Write a half screen.”

  “Have you heard from Søren?” she asked.

  “He’s resting in his office. He’s meeting a few people later. The type you can only find when the rest of us are asleep, it seems. I’m counting on him to find something we can work with. But you’re the one in charge of the entertainment in tomorrow’s paper.” He smiled at her.

  She raised her eyebrows. Entertainment! But really, when it came down to it, that’s how people looked at it. She flipped the page on her notepad and settled into her chair. She might as well get started. They’d need some computer graphics to show the route Frank had taken, but Layout on the fourth floor would take care of that.

  Louise stuffed the last bite in her mouth. Peter was in the bedroom, pulling on a pair of jeans and a sweater. He never wore a suit when he was off work, and that was fine with Louise. They had stopped hauling clothes back and forth between their apartments long ago. He had three shelves in the large wardrobe, and his shirts hung at one end.

  “I’m riding with Henning; we have the court between seven and eight,” he yelled to her.

  “I’m going to take a walk in Østre Anlæg while you’re gone.”

  “Is there anything more to look for? Didn’t the forensics people check everything?”

  “I just want to have a look around.” Louise didn’t feel like explaining that sometimes she could think things out better at the crime scene, after all the hectic activity was over.

  “You’re off work, hon. No one is forcing you to go out there. Why don’t you just stay home and relax until I get back?”

  Louise sighed. He’ll never learn! “No one’s forcing me. I might come up with something useful there, that’s all. Sometimes things make better sense when you’re right there.”

  “And you’re the only one who can do that?”

  She didn’t answer that. They’d gone there so many times.

  “See you when you get back,” she said.

  “I have to stop by the apartment and pick up some papers to go through for tomorrow. If you take the car, you could pick me up on the way back.” He lifted his keys out of his coat pocket.

  “Okay, I’ll call you at eight thirty and see if you’re ready.”

  She went out in the hall with him and kissed him goodbye. Stood in the doorway, watched him walk down the stairs. Smiled at him.

  She wondered if life would be more boring when they finally decided to move in together. Or if it might be more exciting. But something was holding her back. Occasionally, she wondered if it was the expectations and pressures in their lives that kept her from starting a real family.

  That’s silly, she thought. She went back inside for her coat.

  * * *

  She parked the car in front of Krebs School. She’d brought along an umbrella, just in case. It had stopped raining, but the sky still looked threatening.

  She walked to the gate and down the park’s gravel path. From a distance, in the twilight, she could just make out the bushes where Karoline had been hidden. Thick bushes under the trees, all leafless, forming a small cave-like space where she’d lain. The red and white police barrier tape stood out sharply against the naked branches. She felt a tiny stab in her chest when she saw the flames flickering—tea lights protected from the rain by small lanterns had been set out.

  She stopped and studied the scene. Breathed in deeply, concentrated on etching the surroundings and all the details in her brain. The curve of the path, tall trees, low bushes. The bench where Karoline might have been sitting before she was strangled.

  Louise stood on the path and closed her eyes while trying to empty her head of thoughts. The young woman had lost her life here. Something had startled her, and she opened her eyes wide—was someone watching her? Louise had no psychic abilities and no intention of gaining a reputation for having them. She was just trying to sense a mood.

  For the hundredth time she wondered if the same person came several times a day and changed the candles, or was it several people, independent of each other, making sure the small flames were burning?

  Many people had left behind plastic-covered photos of Karoline. Old schoolmates and friends, she guessed. Several rows of flowers had been dropped off. Letters also covered in plastic lay beside some of the bouquets.

  Remembered. Missed. Loved. The same words had been written, over and over. Louise’s throat tightened, but she focused on keeping her emotions in check.

  She noticed a white card.

  Thy will be done had been written with a felt tip, the block letters blurry. It stood out from the other messages.

  It couldn’t have been there very long, otherwise the letters would have been blurred completely out.

  She kneeled to see if the card was attached to a bouquet; it wasn’t. She reached in her pocket for a pair of thin plastic gloves, the type used at crime scenes, but of course she didn’t have any now that she needed them.

  Carefully she picked up the card by its corner, naïvely hoping something on the other side would reveal where it came from.
It was blank.

  She fished her book-style planner out of her bag and laid the card between two pages. Then she grabbed her phone and called the National Center of Forensic Services on Slotsherrensvej. There was no reason to wait until tomorrow; she could just as well drive out there with it.

  “This is Louise Rick from Department A. Is Niels Frandsen or someone working on the Karoline Wissinge murder there?”

  Usually the head of Forensic Services was working during the most intense period of an investigation. The techs were undoubtedly busy with evidence from the park and the hotel where Frank Sørensen had been killed.

  “Hi, Rick, you’re working late, too?”

  Louise liked his warm baritone voice. She visualized Frandsen, a man in his late fifties, with an ever-present pipe hanging from the corner of his mouth. It was seldom lit, but that didn’t seem to bother him. The first time she met him, she thought he was the easygoing type, very easygoing. Like someone who would rather be home with the wife and grandchildren, drinking coffee while he packed his pipe. But she’d quickly realized he had another side. He was sharp as a knife and worked like a horse, and he was more patient and thorough than anyone she’d met.

  “Hi, I figured you’d be around.”

  She glanced at her watch: eight fifteen. She would have to pick Peter up soon. “I’m in Østre Anlæg, and there’s an interesting card someone laid where Karoline Wissinge was found. I’m coming by with it.”

  “All right then. It must be really interesting to get you to come all the way out here.”

  “Probably it’s just some idiot with a bizarre sense of humor, but it’s different from the others.”

  She read the short message to him, and they agreed it should be checked for fingerprints, plus the writing should be looked at, too.

  She called Peter and explained she was going to be delayed, that she was driving out to Forensics but would pick him up on the way back.

  He didn’t have much to say. He sounded annoyed that she was still working. The mood of the conversation turned gloomy. She suggested that she drive home and pick up some clothes after delivering the card, and then she’d come over to his apartment.

  He broke her off. “It would be way too late.” Either he would go to bed early or watch a good film. She gave up. When he was in this mood, there was nothing she could do.

  “Okay. What about your car?”

  They decided she could keep it; he had a meeting in town the next day and wouldn’t need it.

  “Okay then, have a good night’s sleep. Are we still meeting up with Camilla and Markus tomorrow?”

  “Of course, yes.”

  She couldn’t read the tone in his voice.

  “You use milk?” Frandsen yelled from the reception area, on his way with their coffee.

  “Please, if you have any.”

  The hallway was quiet, but Louise knew people were working behind many of the closed doors. She’d parked behind the gray building and had walked past four of the forensic technicians’ blue vans, which were ready to pull out past the low, red buildings housing the small special departments.

  So much went on here. Clothes were inspected for blood and semen before being sent to the Department of Forensic Medicine, where the Forensic Genetics department did DNA profiling; the IFIS database with 250,000 fingerprints was searched for matches; castings of footprints were compared; and all the small fibers and hair picked up at crime scenes were studied meticulously. She was fascinated by the evidence Forensics examined, so much so that once she’d even thought about applying to become part of the technician team.

  They sat down at the rectangular conference table. “All right, let’s take a look at what you have.”

  Louise brought out her planner and dumped the card on the table. It landed back side up. Frandsen grabbed a pair of tweezers, standard equipment for the department. After turning the card over, he studied the short sentence.

  “An idiot, was that what you said?”

  She nodded.

  “Surely you don’t place a card at the crime scene if you killed the girl?” He frowned. “It would be idiotic, yes, to draw attention to yourself.”

  “You never know. You’d never believe killers would be stupid enough to leave semen behind in a female victim!”

  “No, you’re right, of course you are. But surely he wouldn’t voluntarily leave evidence.” He shook his head. “I just can’t see that.”

  Louise rubbed her forehead. Her thoughts were sluggish as her exhaustion began taking over.

  “It’ll be interesting anyway to see if there are fingerprints on the card,” Frandsen said. He lifted it up with the tweezers and held it to the light.

  “Did you find any fingerprints on her?” Louise hadn’t seen any of the lab results yet.

  He shook his head.

  “I’m hoping you find something,” she said. “But this might turn out to be completely innocent. Someone might have thought this was a good time and place to profess their faith.” She stood up and put on her coat. “We’ll see, anyway.”

  He followed her down and gave her a fatherly pat on the shoulder when she thanked him for the coffee. They agreed to talk the next day.

  It was close to ten thirty when Louise headed for Frederiksberg. She was fine with Peter not being there. She’d have a glass of the red wine left over from dinner, then go to bed.

  7

  What the hell are you spending your time on?” Suhr thundered. “Sitting on your asses drinking coffee instead of getting something done, it looks like. What do you think this place is, some spa for pregnant nuns?”

  Louise sighed. The storm blew over. He exploded once in a while, but it never lasted long. It usually happened when they were stuck on a case and it seemed they’d never get anywhere. When all their leads were cold, when no one had seen anything. He probably hadn’t gotten much sleep the past two and a half days, and they’d had nothing even close to a breakthrough in the two cases he was responsible for. It was understandable, him blowing his top out of frustration, but it was damn irritating while it lasted. She stole glances at the others around the table. Henny Heilmann’s eyes were on her boss; she took the brunt of his outburst. She could take an awful lot, Louise thought.

  Back in her office, she leaned over to stick her bag under the desk. The intercom suddenly came to life, and instantly she jerked up and banged her head on the underside of the desk.

  “Heilmann here. Meet me in my office in a half hour.”

  Her voice crackled. Jørgensen stood up to turn the volume down.

  Heilmann greeted them, and they all sat down to bring each other up to date, but Suhr burst in before they could start. He was barely inside when he asked when they expected to make an arrest. No one spoke; there was nothing to say.

  Louise straightened up automatically, preparing for what was coming. Across the desk, Michael Stig’s lips narrowed.

  Heilmann seemed completely unaffected. “We have a few leads we hope will pan out later today. Last night Rick found a card at the crime scene; she drove out to Forensic Services with it.”

  Everyone stared at Louise. She’d been expecting to bring it up herself at this meeting, but she’d informed Heilmann about it right after the morning briefing.

  Suhr nodded at her. “Interesting. What about the interviews?” He looked around.

  Heilmann opened her files. “CID reports that no one in the area recognized the victim. They went through the nearby apartment buildings twice, also expanded their questioning toward Gammeltoftsgade and the apartments facing Nørre Farimagsgade. Either no one was on the street when Karoline Wissinge walked along there, or else she didn’t attract any attention.” She looked up from her papers.

  CID, Criminal Investigations Department, didn’t participate in the regular briefings. They were kept up to date and called to do specific tasks that didn’t require their presence at Homicide.

  Suhr glared in dissatisfaction at everyone in the room. Louise noticed that Stig
slumped when the head of Homicide’s eyes passed right by him. Everyone wanted to contribute something that would earn them a nod, Louise thought.

  “Lasse Møller,” Suhr screamed, seeing that everyone sat silently, waiting for his next outburst. The only one who didn’t cringe was Toft, who straightened his glasses and smiled.

  “I had him in here most of the day yesterday, and frankly I can’t see him hiding something from us. He says he and Karoline left together from Baren. A witness saw him at a café on St. Hans Square. The techs have been through his apartment; there isn’t a single piece of evidence on his clothes to connect him with the victim.”

  Suhr grunted as Toft continued. “We have a report from Forensics on every piece of clothing he was wearing Saturday night, and it checked out with him having walked in the rain for about a half hour. His coat wasn’t soaked, and it would have been if he’d been out more than an hour.”

  Suhr was still dissatisfied. “Witnesses?”

  Louise was sitting on a chair against the wall. On the way to the meeting she’d grabbed a notepad and a pen, and now the paper lay balanced on her knee. She wrote Lasse with crooked letters and crossed it out with two lines.

  “I’ll stop by Pussy Galore again this evening,” Toft said. “The witness who confirmed the time he was there was absolutely certain, but let’s see if we can find some others who saw him. And then there’s the missing debit card receipt.”

  Heilmann smiled at him. Toft never gave up if there was a shred of doubt. He was known for that, and everyone accepted that sometimes he clutched at straws, even though he should move on.

  “Good,” Suhr said. He’d worked with Toft so many years that he never questioned his priorities. He glared at the rest of them and spoke sternly. “This is day four. It’s starting to look like we’ve got a long, drawn-out affair ahead of us.”

  It irritated Louise to hear him talking in those terms already.

  “Saturday we’re doing a week-after canvass. CID will be assisting us; we’ll start at nine p.m. by stopping everyone—and I mean everyone—in the area around Silver Square, the victim’s home, and Østre Anlæg, the most likely park entrances the murderer used. But we’re placing officers along the entire route from Baren to the crime scene.”