The Dinosaur Feather

by S. J. Gazan

  “But that’s what he has done by calling me,” Professor Moritzen protested. “It has been this way all his life.” Again she looked ashamed. “I always made his calls. To the tax office, the housing benefit office, the student grant office. He can’t call people he doesn’t know. He just clams up.” She looked out of the window.

  “Perhaps there really is something wrong with him,” she said. “But then I don’t understand why he’s always been a straight-A student.” They sat for a while. Søren gave Professor Moritzen a break. Then he got up.

  “I’m going to pick him up now,” he said. “And we’ll help him, okay? As much as we can.”

  She looked inscrutable. “Yes,” was all she said.

  When Søren left Professor Moritzen’s block, it had started to drizzle.

  It was close to midnight when Søren, accompanied by four colleagues, arrived at 12 Glasvej. Søren looked up at the apartment, which, according to Professor Moritzen’s instructions, was on the third floor to the right. It was dark. He had briefed the others before they left the station and he reiterated the main points. Asger Moritzen was highly likely to be unstable. He shunned people and he was anxious, so their approach must be soft and gentle. Four heads nodded. Then they entered. When they reached the third floor, the four uniformed officers lined up on the stairs and Søren, who was in plain clothes, put his ear to the door before he knocked. There was no sound from the apartment. He knocked harder. No reaction. He called a locksmith, who promised to be there in ten minutes. Søren was tempted to kick down the door, but was reminded of what Professor Moritzen had told him about Asger.

  “Proceed with caution,” he had told the others in the street, and he stuck with that even though he had his doubts. He knocked lightly on the neighbor’s door. A moment later, they heard footsteps. The door was opened by a puzzled-looking woman in a nightgown. They spoke for three minutes. The woman had never met her neighbor. She had lived in her apartment for ten months and she had wondered about it, of course, but decided the apartment was probably empty while its owner was traveling. She had never heard any noises coming from it. No running water. No music or guests. She shrugged. Sorry, she couldn’t help them. Søren thanked her and asked her to return to her apartment. When her door had been closed, a breathless locksmith came up the stairs. Two minutes later, Søren could open the door to Asger’s apartment.

  “Asger Moritzen,” he called out. “This is the police. We would like to talk to you.” Not a sound. Inside, it was dark—only the light from the stairwell made it possible to see. Søren switched on the light. The hall was spacious and tidy. The built-in closet was closed, as were the three doors. The kitchen must be the door to the left. He signaled to the others to stay put. He called out again. Still no reply. He carefully nudged open the kitchen door with his elbow—the light from the hall enabled him to find the switch. The kitchen was tidy and impersonal. The walls were bare, and Søren could see silvery trails from a dishcloth on the work surface. The sink shone. He returned to the hall and stopped in front of the two closed doors. One had to lead to the living room with the blacked-out windows, the other to the bedroom. He opened the one to the left, again calling out.

  “Dr. Moritzen. This is the police. We want to talk to you.” The smell hit his nose. Nail polish remover was his first thought, some sort of solvent, definitely. The room was black and quiet.

  “Flashlight, please,” he demanded over his shoulder and one of the officers shone a bright beam of light into the room. There were tanks everywhere, just like Professor Moritzen had said. From floor to ceiling. In the middle of the room were a loveseat and a coffee table. Nothing stirred. Søren switched on the light and the cold, dim gleam helped him get his bearings. The smell of solvent was overpowering. Then he spotted something glowing white. In every terrarium lay a cotton ball, each the size of a child’s fist.

  Behind him, his colleague coughed. Søren turned around and asked him to open the window. He walked up close to one of the tanks. Then he spotted it. A bird spider, the size of a cake plate, diagonally behind the cotton ball. It didn’t stir.

  “The window has been painted over,” the officer gasped.

  “Smash it,” Søren said, now desperate. Suddenly he felt faint and the smell irritated his nostrils. Two loud bangs followed, then the autumn air filled the room. Søren tapped the glass of the tank, but the spider stayed put. He checked the animals, searching for one he knew something about. What else had Professor Moritzen said? Crickets and mice. He had to find them to be certain. What did he know about the behavior of bird spiders? He found both in two tanks on the floor. One contained cricket-like beings, stacked like a pile of dried twigs. He tapped the glass. Not a single nervous twitch. The tank beside it was filled with sawdust and dead mice. Søren straightened up.

  “He’s killed his animals,” he concluded, sadly.

  He walked past his colleague and back to the hall where the other three officers were waiting, exhibiting varying degrees of tension.

  “Call for an ambulance. I’m sure he’s in the bedroom,” he said, looking at the officer at the back. Then he put on a pair of rubber gloves and entered Asger’s bedroom. The darkness practically spilled out of it. Søren called out. Same words, no response. He listened. Someone passed him the flashlight, and he shone it inside the room. Blacked-out windows, a desk, bundles neatly arranged along the wall, a bed, a human foot.

  He found the switch and turned on the light.

  Asger lay on the bed. His hips and stomach covered by a blanket, his torso bare and white. His eyes were closed, his hair, which needed cutting, lay like a matted halo around his face. His skin was pale and waxy, and he didn’t stir when the three officers came in. Søren carefully checked if Asger had a pulse.

  “He’s dead,” he said, softly. Spots indicating early decomposition were forming on the surface of Asger’s skin. Søren thought hard. Every impression must be memorized. Soon the medical examiner and the crime scene officers would take over and ask Søren to leave. Now was the time.

  “Check the expression on his face,” Søren said. “Why so tortured?” He sniffed the air. Had Asger taken solvent to kill himself? Had he wanted to die like his animals? The room was tidy like the others. The bundles, the small desk with the laptop, wrapped up exactly like Professor Moritzen had described. He turned around and looked at the shelves. Small tanks, jars of preserved animals, books. How had he died? Søren carefully sniffed the body, but he couldn’t smell anything, then he lifted the duvet and peered under it. Nothing.

  “Søren,” one of the officers behind him called out. “Watch out.”

  Søren had sent the officers out of the bedroom, but one had stayed in the doorway, watching him. His voice was ominous. Søren had pulled the blanket over Asger’s hips and had just let go of it. Suddenly, a scorpion emerged from Asger’s hair, just behind his ear. It was yellow and had retracted its venomous sting. It scampered across Asger’s chest. Søren quickly withdrew his hand.

  “Fucking hell,” he exclaimed. “He was bitten by a scorpion.” The scorpion darted across the body and disappeared under the blanket.

  “There’s another one,” said the officer. He was right. It sat in a fold to the right of Asger’s pillow. Søren looked up at the wall. There was another one.

  “Okay, boys,” he said, keeping very calm. “I’m coming out.” He retreated with as much dignity as he could muster and closed the door to Asger’s bedroom. A shiver went down his spine.

  “Fucking hell,” he said again.

  “What do we do now?” one of the officers asked.

  “No one is going in there,” Søren ordered. Not that anyone wanted to.

  The ambulance arrived, then Bøje, another two sergeants, two crime scene officers, and a wizened man from Animal Control who had come to remove the scorpions. He went into Asger’s bedroom with two of the crime scene officers who were there to make sure he didn’t destroy any evidence. Wearing special gloves, he removed eight Buthidae scorpions
, he explained over his shoulder to Søren, very likely to belong to the Leiurus Questriatus family. Their venom was poisonous, but a sting by only one scorpion, he continued, was unlikely to have killed Asger. A child or an older person might have died, but not a young man. However, no one could survive eight scorpions, the man said and shook his head gravely.

  “My guess is that he—or someone—placed the animals under his blanket,” he added.

  “Why?” Søren asked him.

  “As a rule scorpions don’t attack,” he replied. “They’ll only sting if they’re trapped or provoked. By a blanket, for example.” And off he went with the scorpions.

  Asger’s body was removed, and the crime scene officers got to work. Everything reeked of suicide. There were eight empty transport tanks in a hidden angle behind the bed and below Asger’s half-open hand, which hung over the bed lay a book entitled The World’s Most Dangerous Scorpions. Søren watched the stripped bed. All that loneliness, he thought. He had found a note in the kitchen. The handwriting was microscopic and the space between the lines so small that Søren could barely read it. The letter was placed in a bag, which was then sealed. Søren sighed. He knew what it would say. Forgive me. My life is dreadful. I don’t want to live any longer. PS. I killed my dad. Aside from the latter, all suicide notes were written from a template. All that loneliness, he thought again. With a heavy heart, he went back to Professor Moritzen.

  Chapter 20

  It was Monday October 15, the first weekday morning of the autumn intersession, and Anna was woken up by Lily balancing a plate of fruit. Anna tried to appear awake. The previous night she had told Karen about Troels, Karen had cried and cried, and it had been past four in the morning by the time they went to bed.

  “Rabbit food,” Lily said. “Auntie Karen says it’s called rabbit food.” Anna could hear Karen light a fire in the stove in the living room, and she lifted her daughter up into the bed and made her comfortable.

  “Yum,” she said, stroking Lily’s hair. “I love rabbit food.”

  “Do you know what it is?”

  “All rabbits know about rabbit food,” Anna declared.

  “But you’re not a rabbit!” Lily squealed with delight. Karen appeared in the door. She looked tired, smiled and said good morning.

  “My mom says she’s a rabbit,” Lily informed her.

  Karen smiled.

  “Your mom is a biologist, so if she says she’s a rabbit, then she must be.”

  Lily started eating Anna’s carrot sticks, dropping only a few pieces on the bed sheets.

  “Er,” Karen said, looking at Anna, “are you free today?”

  “Not entirely,” Anna replied, checking her watch. “I’ve got two things to do. One is at the Natural History Museum. You want to come along? There’s an exhibition about feathers and a real glacier you can touch and lots of animals and short films. Lily loves that kind of thing.”

  “What are you doing there?”

  “I’m meeting someone. In the Vertebrate Collection at eleven o’clock. I would like you to come. I’ll be an hour, max. You can have a hot dog in the meantime. Then I need to stop off at Bellahøj police station and… well, we’ll see.” She smiled and Karen sat down on her bed.

  Anna felt a pang of guilty conscience.

  “Are you okay?” She scrutinized Karen.

  “I still don’t understand it,” she said and the tears welled up in her eyes.

  “Come on, lie down here,” Anna said gently. Karen snuggled up and Anna held her close.

  “I hope they sentence him to treatment of some kind,” Karen said. “That they help him.”

  Anna nodded.

  “Where do you think he is now?”

  “Bellahøj police station,” Anna said. “I’m being interviewed at 1 p.m., then he goes before a judge and he’ll probably be remanded in custody.”

  “I would like to visit him, if I’m allowed to. Would you come with me?”

  “No,” Anna said, stroking Karen’s hair.

  “Okay,” Karen said into Anna’s arm.

  At 10:30 a.m. they arrived at the Natural History Museum. They looked at all the colorful plastic animals, pencils, and posters in the museum shop by the entrance. Karen bought Lily a dinosaur eraser while Anna hung up their coats.

  “I thought you were meeting someone?”

  “I am, in half an hour.”

  They strolled through the exhibition and lingered for a long time in front of the different displays.

  “I didn’t know birds were dinosaurs!” Karen exclaimed as she studied a poster depicting the 200-million-year evolution of the feather. Anna smiled.

  “So a sparrow is a dinosaur?” Karen wanted to know. Anna nodded.

  “And when we eat chicken, we’re really eating dinosaurs?”

  “Yep! And I like mine with roasted potatoes,” Anna said.

  “Roasted potatoes! They must be extinct by now, surely?” Karen teased her. Anna elbowed her.

  “Ahhhh, Mom, that’s so cute,” Lily burst out. She was standing in front of a low display case containing a model of a baby Tyrannosaurus. It was the size of a small dog, had giant feet and was covered by a soft, insulating layer of down. Anna leaned forward, gazing at the small body.

  “What is it?” Karen asked her.

  “A feathered baby Tyrannosaurus.”

  “Right,” Karen said.

  “Fascinating, isn’t it?” Anna remarked.

  “What is?”

  “That it has feathers.”

  “I think it’s more fascinating that its arms are so short. Must have been a real nuisance.”

  At that moment, Lily spotted a sign with an ice-cream cone on it at the far end of the lobby where the café was located.

  “Ice cream,” she shrieked, taking off.

  Karen chased after her.

  “So sorry, I’ve ruined your daughter,” she called back over her shoulder.

  “That’s quite all right,” Anna called back. “I’ll be off now. Back in an hour, all right? I’ll come and find you when I’ve finished.”

  Karen waved without turning around.

  Anna let herself into the university through a concealed door in the Whale Room, which had been painted two shades of blue to blend in. She caught a glimpse of the bench where she had sat with Troels, before the door slammed shut behind her and she was in the strange, but now familiar, system of corridors. She started walking and when she turned into the corridor leading to the Vertebrate Collection, Professor Freeman was already there. She knew he wouldn’t have been able to resist! Even so, a wave of triumph rippled through her. Freeman had taken off his jacket and was holding it under his arms, which were folded across his chest. Everything about him exuded rejection. Anna’s heart started pounding, and she concentrated on holding out a hand, which didn’t shake.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Thank you for coming,” Anna said, feigning composure.

  She unlocked the door to the collection and switched on the light, which scrambled and rattled into action. Anna heard a chair scrape across the floor far away and knew she had to get Professor Freeman to say something, so Dr. Tybjerg would know that she wasn’t alone.

  “Do you have a vertebrate collection at UBC?” she asked. She said UBC so loudly that it was a miracle Freeman didn’t comment on it.

  “Yes, obviously,” he said. “Our collection is far bigger than yours. The biggest in North America… but the atmosphere in here,” he added, sounding almost amiable, “is really quite special. The cabinets, the systematics, it’s all very old-worldly.”

  There was silence at the far end of the collection where Tybjerg must have heard Anna arrive with a guest and presumably figured out who it was. Anna had planned the scenario the night before, and she deliberately led Professor Freeman to the place where she had found Dr. Tybjerg last Wednesday. She lit a desk lamp, pulled out a chair, and asked Freeman to sit down. Then she opened her bag and took out her dissertation and the draft of the lectu
re she would give in a week.

  “You said you had something for me,” Freeman said.

  “I lied,” Anna said, looking straight at Freeman. “I want you to listen to what I have to say.”

  Freeman reached for his jacket, which had slipped to the floor. He looked as if he was about to leave.

  “You’re a coward if you leave,” Anna declared. Professor Freeman blinked and let his jacket fall.

  “You have fifteen minutes. Not a second more,” he said through clenched teeth.

  Anna gulped. Her lecture lasted an hour, and the subsequent defense, forty-five minutes. Now she had fifteen.

  “I wrote my dissertation on the controversy surrounding the origin of birds,” she began, “and you play a key part in this controversy.”

  Professor Freeman looked at her as if he couldn’t be less interested in what she had to say.

  “I’ve read everything you have written, papers and books. Gone through them with a fine-tooth comb.” She studied him. “And I’ve read everything your opponents have written and examined that just as closely.”

  Professor Freeman still looked utterly bored.

  “Your most prominent opponents are,” Anna continued, “Walter Darren from New York University, Chang and Laam from the University of China, T. K. Gordon from the University of Sydney, Belinda Clark from the University of South Africa, and, of course, Lars Helland and Erik Tybjerg from the University of Copenhagen.” She flicked through her papers.

  “What your opponents have in common is that they all criticize your fossil analyses and, on that basis, reject your conclusions regarding the origin of birds; criticism that you don’t accept, am I right?” She didn’t wait for his consent, but carried on.

  “For more than fifteen years you have engaged in fossil trench warfare, even though experts agree there’s no longer anything to debate. Let me give an example of your critics’ view on the origin of birds: Belinda Clark is quoted in the September 2006 issue of Nature as saying…” Anna picked up a sheet and read out loud: