by Willow Rose
Lise had thought about this for a long time, and now she was going to talk to the pastor about it. She would ask her if there was some chance that Henning could have been forgiven. Wasn’t it so that the Lord had taken all of our sins when He died on the cross? Couldn’t He have taken Henning’s then?
Lise sniffled and parked the bike by the red wooden fence at the entrance to the church. She locked it and started walking across the gravel. She grabbed the handle to the heavy wooden door and pushed it open.
“Pastor Kemp?” she said, as she walked in.
Candles were lit at the altar, and it looked like someone was in there.
“Pastor Kemp?” Lise Knudsen said again, as she walked closer to the figure. “I have a question about Heaven and Hell that I need to get clarified.”
She blinked her eyes. It was hard to see what it was…if it was a person or something else.
Damn these old eyes.
She walked a few steps closer, then she stopped with a gasp. Lise Knudsen held a hand to her chest and gasped for air. In front of her, attached to the old wooden cross, stared the pastor back at her with open lifeless eyes.
11
“SORRY I’M LATE. I ran into our new neighbor.”
Sune threw his jacket on the chair before he sprang for coffee. It was past lunchtime, and I had been waiting for him for several hours. I followed him into the kitchen. “What do you mean new neighbor?”
Sune sipped his coffee. The tip of his nose and ears were red from the cold. “Well, it’s technically your dad’s neighbor, but we live there too, at least until we find something else, right?”
I sighed and grabbed some coffee as well. It had been a discussion subject for what felt like forever now. Sune was tired of living in my dad’s house with him and wanted us to buy our own place, whereas I thought it was practical to be close to my dad so I could better take care of him. I understood why Sune was tired of it, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to move out yet. I felt bad for my dad. He loved having us there.
“So, what was he like?” I asked, blowing on my cup.
“Seemed like a nice guy,” Sune said. “We just talked for a few minutes, that’s all. He’s renting the house.”
“Any kids?”
“No.”
“Wife?”
“Just went through a bad breakup.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah, well…” Sune sipped his coffee. “You got work for me?”
“Yes. I want you to get me into the autopsy report on the couple that was found in the lake on Sunday. Could you do that?”
Sune shrugged and sipped his coffee again. “Are you asking if I can or if I will?”
I made a grimace. “Just do it, alright?”
Sune laughed. “I will. But why? I thought it was just a drowning accident?”
“That’s what they’ve been telling the press, but I have a feeling it was something else. It was something the boy said during the interview. They weren’t exactly dressed to be fishing. And only hardcore fishermen would go out in this cold, and they would definitely dress for it.”
Sune nodded pensively while drinking more coffee. He grabbed a pastry from the bag and put it in his mouth.
“Besides, the boy said the woman was dressed in a suit and tie, while the man was in a dress. I want to know if that’s right. I also want to know how they died. I tried to call the forensics department, but they said they couldn’t tell me since it’s an ongoing investigation.”
“So, they think it’s murder?” Sune asked.
“I asked them the very same question, but they said they couldn’t answer that,” I said, and started walking back towards my desk.
“To be fair then, a drowning accident needs to be investigated as well,” he said. “They can’t tell you anything until they have all the facts.”
“I know, but I’m just not buying it,” I said, and pointed at the newspaper’s computer. I never used it, since I had my laptop, but it was perfect for Sune. If anyone tracked him, they would never know it was actually him. The newspaper would have to take the fall, which they were prepared to do. I had made that deal with Jens-Ole. It would never fall back on Sune, no matter what.
Sune turned it on and pulled up a chair. I returned to my own screen and let him do his magic. I looked at Sara, who suddenly seemed preoccupied with what was happening on the police scanner. Her eyes met mine, and I understood it was serious.
12
“SOMETHING IS going on at the church,” Sara finally said. She looked at me intensely. I could tell she was agitated. Her cheeks were blushing.
“Like what?” I asked.
“I don’t know, but they’ve called all cars to go there…code fourteen.” Sara took off her headset and stared at me. “Possible homicide.”
I turned and looked at Sune. “We should go,” I said.
He got up and grabbed his camera.
I put my jacket on, and then rushed down the stairs with Sune right after me. We drove across town and ran a couple of red lights. I figured all the police cars were occupied, so no one would notice. There was hardly any traffic, so it took only a few minutes to reach the church. Three police cars were parked in front. A fourth arrived when we did.
“Sara was right,” I said, and parked the car. “This is big.”
We jumped out of the car. Sune was shooting pictures as we walked towards the entrance. His finger was constantly working the camera, shooting everything.
“They haven’t blocked the entrance with tape yet,” I whispered, as we came closer.
We walked with determined steps past the police cars and onto the gravel. Sune was still shooting. The church door was open as we walked up, and someone walked inside. I grabbed the door before it closed, and pulled it open again. Sune shot pictures like crazy, while I held my breath.
The sight that met us was excruciating. It was really bad. A woman, dressed in a suit and tie and a top hat, was attached to a wooden cross with nails through her hands. She had been crucified. Two officers were working on getting the cross down.
“Hey! What are you doing here?” A voice yelled from inside the church. An officer had spotted us, and came running towards us. The sound of his voice echoed in the old church building.
“Let’s go,” I said, and closed the door.
We walked away as the officer came up behind us. “You two. Stop.”
We stopped and turned to look at him. He was fairly handsome, tall with blond hair and blue eyes.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, pointing his baton at me. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
I showed him my press card. “Zeeland Times. We heard something was going on and wanted to see what it was, Officer…?”
“Pedersen. Henrik Pedersen. And you’re Rebekka Franck, huh? I read all your articles. We went to the same high school. We lived down the street from you in number fourteen. I was one grade under you, but you probably don’t remember me.”
“Pedersen. Oh, yeah. Now I do. You had a sister, right?”
“Yes.”
“I remember her. I used to play with her.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“So, what happened here?” I asked, hoping to exploit the fact that I knew the guy a little, even if I didn’t remember him, only remembered his sister. Henrik Pedersen looked around before he leaned over and spoke quietly.
“I’m sorry. I really can’t say anything. You know how it is. This is a police investigation.”
Just as he spoke, two vans from the forensic department in Copenhagen drove up. I looked at them, then back at the officer. “I think it’s fair to say that you can’t hide the facts anymore, Officer. We’re talking murder here, right?”
He looked like he really wanted to help me. “You know I can’t say much yet. Not until the crime scene technicians have done their job. But, between you and me, yes. It’s definitely murder.”
“I won’t quote you on that, Officer,” I said with a smile. “Who was
it? Who was on the cross?”
The officer looked around to see if anyone was listening, then he whispered. “The pastor. It was the pastor. Someone nailed the woman to the cross like freaking Jesus.”
“What about the clothes?” I asked. “It didn’t look much like the pastor’s usual robe, did it?”
“I can’t comment on that.”
“I won’t quote you on it. I saw it with my own eyes, remember?” I said.
Officer Pedersen leaned over and whispered. “It was a suit and hat. Strange, huh?”
As he spoke, another officer approached us. He looked angry. “Officer Pedersen? You’re needed inside,” he said.
“Yes, sir.” Officer Pedersen looked away. He stormed inside.
I recognized the officer as Chief Superintendent Bergman, newly appointed head of the Karrebaeksminde police department. I’d had meetings with the superintendent several times before. Usually, he was polite and ready to talk, but not today. He looked at us with fury in his eyes.
“You two better get out of here,” he said. “We don’t want any press on this case.”
“Can you confirm it is a homicide?” I asked.
“I told you, we don’t want any press on this case.”
“Is it related to the bodies found in the lake?” I asked.
Superintendent Bergman stared at me. His eyes went almost black.
“GET OUT OF HERE!”
13
“THAT WAS STRANGE.”
Sune looked at me when we got back to the car.
“I mean, how he reacted. He looked like he wanted to grab us and throw us out of there.”
I unlocked the car. “It was weird,” I said. “Usually, he’s a very gentle guy, very friendly and someone I can talk to.”
We got in and I started the car. “Could it be my question?” I asked. “Did I strike a nerve or something?”
“It sure looked like it. I mean, he was angry at first, but he didn’t get really mean until you asked him if the two cases were related.”
I drove off, while trying to shake off the experience of the superintendent yelling at me like that. It was quite uncomfortable.
“They must be, but why did that make him so mad at me?” I said, as we were back on the main road leading through town.
“Maybe he’s nervous?” Sune suggested. “Maybe the case is troubling him or something? Maybe he just had a bad day.”
“You can say that again,” I said, and parked in front of the newspaper’s offices downtown. I got out and went into the small building. Sara was still listening to the scanner as we entered.
“Anything new?” I asked.
“Nope. Except they have told everyone to avoid any contact with the press whatsoever. No one is allowed to talk to journalists.”
“That’s odd,” I said, and sat down by my computer. Sune returned to his in the corner. “I mean, they’re usually happy to talk to us, and use us to help in search of suspects and so on. They might keep secrets from us, but they don’t usually keep us completely out like this.”
“Maybe they’re afraid of spreading panic,” Sara said. “You know how easily people get scared.”
“True, but still…” I paused and drank a sip of water from my bottle. There was something going on here that I didn’t like. Why would they try and keep the press completely out of this? If anything, they needed us to search for eyewitnesses and so on. We always helped each other. I didn’t understand.
“I think I know why,” Sune suddenly said.
I looked at him across the room.
“I got the autopsy. You were right; the man was wearing a dress and the woman a suit and tie…”
“Just like the pastor,” I interrupted him. “Someone’s trying to make a statement here. A spectacular one indeed. The bodies are on display. He wants us to find the bodies. He wants us to hear his message.”
“And, he’s a police officer.”
I almost choked. “What was that?”
Sune shrugged. “The two victims in the lake were both beaten to death with a baton. The same type the officers use. It says so right here. They know exactly what kind of bruises a baton creates, and on the couple there were even black marks left from the rubber. The Danish police batons are made from metal, but covered in black rubber. They tested the rubber found on the skin of the bodies, and it is the same type used for making the police batons in this country.”
I leaned back in my chair. “Well, I’ll be damned…”
“Isn’t it possible for normal people to buy a baton like that online or something?” Sara asked.
I nodded pensively. “It might be, but we need to look into that. There are several possibilities; it could be stolen or something, but it could also be an officer. It would certainly explain why the police are trying to keep the press out of this, why they are reacting so aggressively towards us. I can hardly write any of this in the paper, but at least it gives us something to work with.”
“There’s more,” Sune said.
“What?” I asked.
“The bodies have been mutilated.”
“What do you mean mutilated?” I asked, fearing slightly for the answer.
He looked up from his screen and his eyes met mine.
“Their genitals have been cut off.”
14
“I WANT to shave too. I want to shave myself!” Alex yelled.
It was one of his first childhood memories. At least one of the strongest. At age five, he had watched his dad shave, then asked if he could shave too. His father had given him an empty razor and some shaving cream to play with. Then, Alex came into the bathroom.
“I want to shave too,” she said.
Their father stared at her. “Girls don’t shave,” he said. “Go find your mom. She can help you put on some make-up or nail polish instead.”
“I don’t want make-up,” Alex said, tears forming in her eyes. “I want to shave. I want to shave! Why can’t I shave?”
“Sweetie. You’re a girl. Girls don’t grow beards,” their father said, almost aggressively.
“I don’t think I’m a girl. I don’t feel like a girl. I don’t want to be a girl. What is wrong with me?”
The man remembered the nightly questions from his sister while he sat in the chair of his living room. The questions haunted him.
“What if they’re all wrong and I’m really a boy?” she would ask when she climbed into his bed at night.
“I don’t know, Alex.”
She wanted them to call her Alex. Her real name was Alexandra, but she didn’t like to be called that. Just like she didn’t like to wear all those dresses that their mom would force her to, even on freezing winter days.
“Small girls wear dresses,” she would say, when Alex screamed and tried to rip her dress off in one of her many tantrums that became more and more frequent the older they got. By the time they reached the age of ten, she required all of their parents’ attention, and the boy slid more and more into the background. It was all about Alex. They took her to see doctors and therapists. She was out of control, they told her parents.
“I hate all of them. I don’t want to be a girl,” she would tell him at night, crying. He would comfort her, feeling the pain she felt inside. On nights when their father had whipped her for dressing in jeans or cutting her hair, the boy would hold her in his arms while she cried, even though he himself felt the pain on his back almost as bad as she did.
It was on those nights that he started cursing his parents, the pastor, and all the doctors for what they were trying to do to his sister. Why couldn’t they just let her be who she was? Was it so wrong? Was it such a bad thing?
“I’m not a girl. I’m not a girl!” she would scream at them again and again. The man could still hear her voice in his mind, over and over again. He had tried for years to escape it, but it wouldn’t go away. The pain was still there. He still felt it. He had hoped killing the pastor and making her pay for what she had done would silence the voices i
n his head and ease the pain a little. But it hadn’t. On the contrary. He almost felt like the pain had become deeper and the voices stronger.
It’s all your fault. You know it, don’t you? You did this to her. You didn’t stop them. You knew she was in pain. You knew how bad it was. You felt her pain. And yet you never did anything. You never even spoke up, you coward.
The man felt tears roll across his cheeks. How he loathed these long lonely evenings. How he hated being without Alex.
15
“BY THE WAY, I invited our new neighbor for dinner tonight.”
Sune looked at me and shrugged. “Sorry to spring that on you this late. I completely forgot.”
I had already started dinner, and was standing in the kitchen putting the layers in the lasagna. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“Sorry,” he said. “I completely forgot. He seemed like he needed the company. I felt a little bad for him. His girlfriend recently left him, and he’s all alone. He just moved here. He doesn’t know anyone around the neighborhood.”
“Couldn’t you have said so a little earlier? I’m not sure there’s enough food now. I would have made more,” I said, annoyed.
“Sorry. I forgot.”
I grumbled, then opened the cabinet to see if there was anything I could warm as a supplement to my lasagna and salad. I didn’t find anything and opened the freezer. I found a bag of frozen carrots. “Guess that will have to do,” I said, and defrosted them.