by Willow Rose
Morten groaned. "I guess not. I'm pretty sure she's already dead."
My heart stopped. "Is it Dagmar?"
"No. This one is much older."
I didn't care what Morten had said, I walked inside the shop with the phone still to my ear. Then I gasped as well. Morten was standing in the middle of the room next to the body of a woman who had been strung up by her legs, hanging upside down, the head, decapitated, lying on the floor beneath her.
I felt nauseated and covered my eyes. "She's definitely dead. Just send an ambulance when you can," I said and hung up.
"She's been dead for a long time," Morten said. "There is no blood anywhere."
"Who is she?" I asked, when I dared to look again and removed my hand. "I mean was?"
"Her name is Marianne Moeller," Morten said. "She owns the shop. I’ve been down here on more than one occasion when she called for us to help throw out troublesome Eastern European tourists that she caught stealing."
I shook my head in disbelief. "I don't understand. Why did she have to die?"
"Still looking for meaning to it all?" Morten asked.
I shrugged. Then I heard a sound. "What was that?" I asked.
Morten pulled his gun again.
"Sounds like it came from that closet right there," I said and pointed and an old wooden armoire leaning against the wall.
"Stand back," Morten said and tried to pull it open. "It's locked."
I put a hand in my pocket and pulled out the keychain that Ole had in his shirt pocket.
"Maybe this will fit?"
"Try it."
My hands were shaking while I put the key in the hole and turned it. As I opened the closet, a body fell out and landed on the floor with a thud. I screamed and looked down at it.
It was Dagmar.
There was no doubt. I recognized her from the picture. Morten bent down and felt for a pulse.
"She's still alive. Heavily sedated, but alive."
I kneeled next to her. "Dagmar? Can you hear us?" I looked up at Morten. "We need to get this stuff out of her. Would you help me?"
Morten nodded.
"Grab her body and help her up."
Morten helped me get her to stand upright. "She's heavy."
"I know, but just hold her for a few minutes."
Dagmar moaned.
"What are you planning on doing?"
"It's gonna take a while for the ambulance to get here and be able to pump her stomach. We need to get those pills out now. I have to make her throw up."
I had tried this once before with Maya when she was younger and had swallowed a pack of my birth control pills, thinking they were candy. So, just like the last time, I simply stuck a finger down the woman's throat and let it stay until she started gagging. A few seconds later, she threw up all over the floor.
43
February 2014
THAT NIGHT, MORTEN AND I both had trouble sleeping. He was tossing and turning, while I was mostly staring at the ceiling where the moonlight from outside lit it up. It had cleared up and finally stopped snowing and the full moon was shining brightly outside, making it even harder for me to sleep with all the light.
I kept thinking about Dagmar and Marianne Moeller in the shop. I was happy that we had been able to save Dagmar, but sad that Marianne had to die. It was terrible. Furthermore, the paramedics told me that there had been another murder attempt downtown on the same night. A woman had been stabbed in her own living room and they weren't sure she would survive.
What the heck was going on in this town? Was the killer just killing randomly now? Where was the silver lining in all these killings? Maybe there wasn't any. Maybe he was just crazy; maybe he was just mentally ill.
Oh my God, Victor. What am I supposed to do about Victor?
Well, I guess I had to see if we could get a social worker from City Hall to take care of our case. I had no idea where else to turn. The situation wasn't sustainable for him right now. He was allowed in school, but they wanted me to find another solution as soon as possible.
I managed to finally fall asleep an hour before the alarm clock sounded, then tumbled out of bed and walked downstairs to prepare breakfast. My dad was sitting in the kitchen when I walked in. I had completely forgotten about him.
"Good morning, sweetie," he said, looking up from his paper.
"Dad? You're still here?" I asked, worried that he would run into my mother again. Then I wondered where she was, if she had even come home last night after her date.
"Yes. When you didn't come back and it was after midnight, I took one of the guestrooms."
"Of course," I said. "I had completely forgotten you were here. Thank you so much for being in the house with the kids while I was gone."
"No problem, sweetheart. You know how much I enjoy spending time with those munchkins."
I laughed and kissed his forehead. "Yes, I know. But thanks anyway." I found some sliced bread and toasted it. Then I poured some cereal in a bowl for Victor. "So Mom didn't come home before midnight either, huh?"
My dad looked down at his paper. His eyes avoided mine when he spoke. "No. I guess she didn't."
I found orange juice, cheese, and butter in the refrigerator and put them on the table. I put a piece of bread on a plate and handed it to my dad. "Here."
"You sure you don't want me to leave right away?" he asked. "It could get awkward."
"I know, but you were here first. As a matter of fact, you’re the only one who has always been here for us. So, at least let me treat you to a decent breakfast. Only leave if you're uncomfortable with the situation. I'll make some coffee."
"Thanks, sweetie. I don't want to cause any trouble, you know."
"I do know. But you're not the one causing trouble, if you know what I mean," I said, as I poured water in the coffeemaker.
My dad smiled, then continued to read the paper. I looked at the front cover, then stopped.
"What the…?" I leaned over and grabbed the paper out of my dad's hand.
"What are you doing?"
"What's this?" I asked, pointing at the front cover.
My dad shrugged.
"You've got to be kidding me! The Caring Killer?"
"That's what they call him, yes. They think he cares about the mentally ill or something. He kills with a purpose, they say. Almost makes him a hero, doesn't it? There is an article in here about how he helped save Hummelgaarden and how he now wants us all to focus on drugs for the mentally ill. How the drugs are not controlled and, therefore, many die because they can't control it themselves. The paper is filled with stories like this. They found lots of family members to tell their stories. It's actually filling the entire paper. There's a nice portrait of Hummelgaarden as well, telling about all they have accomplished up there…how many kids they’ve helped. Like this guy for instance," my dad said and took the paper from my hands. He flipped a couple of pages and showed me the picture of a young boy.
"This boy kept getting himself in trouble because he was so aggressive. Ever since he moved to Hummelgaarden, his grades have improved and he is no longer fighting everybody."
"Well, that's great, but still…come on, the man kills people to get his message out. Calling him something as stupid as The Caring Killer and making a hero out of him is really bad."
"They don't actually make a hero out of him. They just tell people that there is a purpose to what he is doing, even if it is horrible."
"But that's exactly what he wants. They're just doing precisely what he wants them to do. If he can get his message out like this, then who knows who else will follow him and try to do something similar? There are plenty of lunatics out there."
44
February 2014
I FELT FRUSTRATED AND angry most of the day. It was such an annoying feeling to be played with the way The Caring Killer was playing me and everyone else on the island. Even the media from the mainland had caught interest in the story now and it was all over. They were calling me like crazy ask
ing me to tell everything I knew about The Caring Killer and why I thought he had chosen me. I refused to talk to any of them. I simply couldn't be a part of all this, of this grand plan of his. I felt like a puppet.
My mother hadn't shown her face all day and I was beginning to wonder if she had even come home at all. I tried not to care. At least I had a great morning with my dad and didn't have to worry about her coming down and ruining everything. I thought about going to her room several times to see if she was up there, but decided not to. It was none of my business what she did with her life.
Morten called me in the afternoon, just before the kids returned from school. I was happy to hear his voice, but hated the fact that all we ever talked about these days was the killer and the case. I wanted Morten to catch him as quickly as possible so I could get back to my life again, but, as it turned out, it wasn’t so easy. I didn't even dare to turn on my computer for fear of what might wait for me next. I was certain The Caring Killer wasn't done yet.
"So, what's new?" I asked Morten.
"Busy morning. I thought you'd like to know that Dagmar is going to be fine. We went to the mainland to visit her this morning and interview her and the doctor told us it didn't look like any of her internal organs had suffered any damage. They were going to keep her for a week and run more tests just to be sure, but so far it seems like you've saved her."
"Well, you were there as well," I said, thinking it was so sweet of him to try and comfort me by telling me this. "I wasn't alone."
"I know. But you really did well yesterday. Making her throw up saved her life, they told me. I can't believe you did that."
"I guess my motherly instincts took over," I chuckled. "It really wasn't so bad."
"Pretty brave if you ask me," Morten said. "Should have been you on the front cover of that paper this morning instead. You're the hero here."
"Thanks, that's really sweet of you to say."
"I mean it." He paused.
"So what did Dagmar tell you? Did she see his face?"
"She can't remember anything. Apparently, one of the pills she was forced to take causes amnesia, so she doesn't remember one damn thing. All she remembers is buying the pills at the pharmacy and coming home with them. Everything after that is completely blacked out."
"Oh no. That's awful."
"What about the other woman? The one who was attacked in her living room?" I asked.
"It's the strangest thing. She's going to be fine too. She was lucky, the doctor said, but the stab didn't hit anything vital. She lost a lot of blood, but will survive. She was actually able to talk to us when we were in the hospital to talk to Dagmar."
"Did she see his face?"
"That's the strange part about it. She told us she was watching TV when, suddenly, the door to her house was kicked in and…get this…a ninja jumped inside her living room and tried to kill her with his ninja-sword. She told us he was dressed exactly like a ninja, all in black and it covered his face. She could see his eyes, though, so we'll have a sketcher make a drawing of them."
"Doesn't exactly match with the man with heavy glasses that we had on the first sketch," I said.
"Unless he was wearing the glasses as a disguise."
"True."
"The strangest part of what she told me was what The Caring Killer said to her before he stabbed her."
"Don't call him that. It's catching on," I said.
"I'm sorry. I can't help it. Everyone down here calls him that. It's horrible. I know," he said apologetically.
"I know. I do it myself. So what did he say to her?"
"He called himself The Deliverer. He told her he was going to set her free from her fears."
"What?" I asked. This was getting more and more strange.
"I know. It sounds raving mad, doesn't it? He's a pure lunatic if you ask me," Morten said.
"I don't know about that," I said.
"What do you mean?"
"It doesn't sound like him."
"Why not?" Morten asked, surprised. "It sounds exactly like him if you ask me. He has a purpose, remember? He wanted to set her free of her fears."
"Yeah, but his purpose was different before. It was to have us focus on things that weren't right. This seems somehow much different."
"It sounds exactly the same to me," Morten said. I could sense a slight annoyance in his voice. He really wanted it to be our killer. He wanted him to be raving mad, but I didn't think he was. The Caring Killer was smart, intelligent and had everything planned thoroughly.
"There is also the matter of the sword," Morten continued. "It could easily be the one used to decapitate our two social workers."
"Two?"
"Yes. It turns out Marianne Moeller from the souvenir shop used to be a social worker as well. She retired two years ago and opened her own shop downtown. According to her neighbors, she was making a lifelong dream come true."
"That makes sense," I said. "She wasn't a random victim. It was deliberate."
"Could be. It turns out, she’s been dead for two weeks. Everybody thought she was on vacation. She was supposed to go to Greece and had told everybody she would be gone and the shop was closed. She loved to travel and has no family, so no one wondered where she was. Get this. It was her blood we found on Tine Solvang's face. We ran a test and it matched."
"The other social worker? So he kept them in the same freezer, did he?"
"Looks like it."
I felt nauseated again. This entire case did that to me. It was frustrating. I wondered who had a freezer big enough to fit two women's bodies. I shook my head and tried to get rid of the thought. It was no use.
"So are we still on for tonight?" Morten asked.
"What?"
"Don't tell me you forgot?"
"Uh…I didn't forget?"
"You forgot what day it is today."
I tried hard to remember.
"I got nothing."
"It's Valentine's day."
"Valentine's day. I was just about to say that. Of course I didn't forget. We were supposed to go out. It's no problem. I'll ask my mom to look after the kids," I said and looked at the door like I expected her to walk through any minute now.
As soon as I find out where she is.
"Great. I'll pick you up at six. I’ve made reservations."
"See you then."
45
July 2007
ALEXANDRA HAD TO BRING baby Olivia with her to the meeting with the social worker at City Hall. She was waiting in the office when a woman in her mid-fifties entered. She looked at Alexandra with a grunt, then forced a smile.
"Alexandra Holm?" she asked, sitting behind her desk.
"Yes," Alexandra said.
"Marianne Moeller," the woman said. "I've been appointed as your social worker." She opened a file and flipped a few pages. "Your son, Samuel tried to kill himself recently?"
She looked at Alexandra over her glasses. The look in her eyes made Alexandra feel uncomfortable.
"Yes. He…he's had a lot of problems…uh…We've tried many things, medicine, therapy, and have seen every specialist we could, but each one gave him a different diagnosis and nothing ever helped. He's a very sensitive boy who can, at times, get very aggressive."
The social worker was nodding while looking down at the papers. "And he was at a boarding school when it happened?"
"Yes. We thought it would be good for him to have some discipline so…"
"After he had been homeschooled for years?" Marianne Moeller asked.
Alexandra didn't care much for the tone of her voice. It was condescending.
"Yes. He was expelled from school…I tried to homeschool him but couldn't…" Alexandra was about to cry. She hated to have to admit to people that she couldn't handle her own boy. "Well, to be honest, I couldn't control him."
"And you didn't think it was kind of a drastic move to suddenly put the boy in a boarding school far away from home, a home that had been his all his life up until then?"
The social worker shrugged. "What should you have done? Well, what do you think other parents do with their children? They discipline them, they raise them, and they punish them when they misbehave. Having an aggressive boy is not that unusual. Plus, maybe you should have looked a little into why the boy was being this aggressive, don't you think? See a family therapist. Not always focus on Samuel as being the problem. When a boy acts out in school, it is my experience that it is most often because things aren't well at home. Do your husband and you fight a lot?"
Alexandra shook her head, perplexed. "No. I mean it has taken a toll on our marriage to care for Samuel, but I hardly think…"
"Does your husband care about the boy?" Marianne Moeller asked.
Alexandra stared at her with wide open eyes. She had never felt so humiliated. "I don't see what that has to do with…"
"Does he love him? Does he hug and kiss him and tell him how wonderful he is? Do his eyes light up when he looks at him?"
"Well no, but that's…"
The social worker nodded. "More often than not, the problem is with the relationship with the father. Maybe you should work on that. And maybe you should consider that fact that Samuel might have tried to commit suicide because you and your husband suddenly decided to remove him from everything he knew and loved, placed him far away and decided to start a new family without him. Am I wrong?"
Alexandra felt the anger rise in her. She considered getting up and leaving, but she couldn't. She needed this woman's help badly.
"I don't…"
"And now you want the county to take care of him, right?" the social worker interrupted her. "Like so many other parents, you screwed up and you want us to fix it, to take the boy."
"I just heard about Hummelgaarden and heard that they do amazing things for children with mental illness. I just thought that maybe it could help him to go there. Help all of us. I have the baby to look after, as well. I simply don't have…"