Eighteen Below

by Stefan Ahnhem

  “You’re a musician?”

  “As much as I have time for, when I’m not on the daily grind.”

  “Anything I’ve heard? The music, I mean.”

  “No, but next year I’m gonna own. ‘Dina Dee is the Shit’ is gonna be all over the radio. Everywhere. Just so you know.”

  “I believe you. By the way, where do you work?”

  “At a doggie daycare in Bårslöv. And yeah, I know it’s, like, lame as fuck. I don’t even like dogs. But the boss is chill and the money is pretty decent.”

  “So you came over to use Chris’s studio?”

  “No, I was going to return these.” She held up a bunch of keys. “Don’t ask me why, but Chris has been in a total shit mood recently. He wanted them back all of a sudden, and I was supposed to be like no questions asked.”

  “When did you last see him?”

  “A couple weeks ago, but back then he was still acting normal.” She shrugged. “But then he called last week and just demanded them back.”

  “Did he say why?”

  “He went off on me for going through his fridge and taking stuff. I called him on his bullshit and hung up. As if I did that more than once, or twice max, and there’s no way he would even notice because he doesn’t even eat the shrimp-flavoured cheese. His kids like it, and I left some for them.”

  “So you never saw him that time?”

  “No, but you know what’s freaking hilarious? The next day I FaceTimed him and he didn’t know it right away. Have you ever tried that? It’s seriously awesome. And free.”

  “So you did see him?”

  “You bet.” She laughed. “Jesus, he was so mad when he caught on. He was all, ‘You put those keys in the mailbox right now.’ He was furious, and then he just hung up. Like, end of story.” She threw up her hands.

  “And you’re sure it was Chris, not someone else?”

  “Sure? What do you mean?” Dina looked at him like she was completely lost. “You’re not saying…Fuck a duck!” Her hand flew to her mouth. “So, what, it wasn’t him? Is that what you’re saying? I guess I thought he looked a little thinner, I don’t know…Shit, this is crazy.” She shook her head like she couldn’t quite believe it.

  “The man you saw on the phone…” Fabian leaned across the table. “Do you think you could point him out in a lineup?”

  “Well, I mean, the picture was pretty crap, but like, why not?” She shrugged and nodded.

  It was almost too good to be true, Fabian thought, leaning back in his chair. In just a few hours they’d managed to find two potential witnesses, and they hadn’t even contacted the banker and the real estate agent yet.

  “Fabian. Do you have a minute?” It was Molander, who had managed to approach Fabian from around the corner of the house without making a sound, despite his rustling protective suit.

  “Did you find something?”

  Molander nodded. “Tuvesson’s on her way.”

  “Sorry, but are we about done here? I have a bunch of smelly dogs that need to go out.”

  Fabian nodded and stood up. “I need your number, and I’ll be contacting you later today or tomorrow. Okay?”

  “Yes, sir.” Diana Davidsson handed him a flyer with a picture of herself with the words Dina Dee is da shit! superimposed. “My number’s on the back.” She put on the red headphones, turned on her heel, and started down the gravel drive toward the gate.

  Only after he heard her start a Vespa and drive off did Fabian turn to Molander. “What have you found?”

  “I think it’s best if you see it with your own eyes.”

  65

  Fabian followed Molander around the side of the house. Blue-and-white police tape fluttered in the breeze across the lawn, where two assistants were busy digging deeper in a hole Fabian estimated already measured two to three metres.

  They ducked under the police tape and approached a folding table, shaded by a garden umbrella; on it was a row of finds. Among them were a black leather wallet, two bullets, and the severed paw of an animal.

  “What did that paw come from?”

  “A German shepherd.” Molander rounded a pile of dirt and crouched down alongside an unrolled tarp where the dog lay. “Don’t ask me what it did to deserve this. She was shot at close range. Executed. You can see the entry wound here.” He pointed at a bloody hole just above the dog’s snout and shook his head. “The bullet went through the entire body; it must have torn up every organ inside. Damn nasty business.”

  So that was why Molander was so quiet and dejected — the victim was an animal rather than a person. He had a tender spot after all.

  “This is probably her master.” Molander lifted the tarp covering the next body.

  The man was on his back, wearing cowboy boots, jeans, and a well-worn T-shirt from a Dire Straits tour, with an equally worn denim jacket over it. He was a big man, close to two metres tall, and despite the style of his clothing, his beard and long hair, he seemed to be a little over fifty.

  “What makes you think that?” Fabian eyed the body, looking for wounds.

  “Shot with the same gun. Both bullets are on the table.” Molander gently lifted the man’s chin and pointed at the entry wound a few centimetres into the beard. “It’s an unusual angle, but considering he was so tall and probably as strong as an ox, my guess is that the killer could only get him to do what he wanted if he kept the threat very close.”

  “What did he want him to do?”

  Molander shrugged. “Walk up to the edge of this hole, I guess.” He rolled the body onto its side and showed Fabian the exit wound on the back of his head.

  “Could it be the same gun that was used in the bank?” Fabian asked, as he noticed Tuvesson approaching them.

  “Unfortunately, it’s not. This one is a different calibre, a Winchester .380, most commonly used in big game hunting.” Molander let go of the body and stood up. “We’ll see what the firearm examination says, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the striations show us it came from one of Chris Dawn’s many hunting rifles down in the basement.”

  “Oh my God.” Tuvesson crouched down to take a closer look at the body. “Do we have any idea who this is?”

  “Not yet.” Molander stretched out his back. “But since he hasn’t been in the earth for much more than two weeks, it shouldn’t be terribly difficult to figure out.”

  “Well, it’s not the financial manager from Ka-Ching, anyway,” Fabian said.

  “You mean Per Krans.” Tuvesson stood up and looked around.

  “He’s over here.” Molander stepped over a collection of evidence boxes and lifted a third tarp; it covered a body that was in much worse condition. “According to the wallet in his back pocket, at least.”

  Large portions of the abdomen, under the white shirt, were so torn up that several of the man’s internal organs were visible. The right side of his face was badly deformed, indicating a skull fracture, and his left eye was no more than a coagulated red stew of blood.

  “Do we know how he died?” Tuvesson asked.

  Molander shook his head. “My first thought was that he was shot through the eye, but there’s no exit wound, so I don’t know. Hopefully Braids can come up with something. Those major wounds are likely from the way the body was handled after death.”

  Fabian could only shake his head. The cold-bloodedness displayed by the perpetrator in the bank had clearly not been a one-time thing. When he encountered an obstacle, he eliminated it. He seemed willing to kill anyone at all. Animal or human, it didn’t matter. “But why did he let the wife and kids live?” Fabian asked aloud. He saw Molander’s face light up at the question.

  “I was wondering the same thing. My theory is he was planning to keep them alive until it was time for Chris Dawn to ‘take his own life.’”

  “How was he going to do that?”

 
“The obvious way would be to put a gun in his mouth after shooting his family. There are plenty of weapons around here, after all.”

  “Okay, let’s say that’s his plan,” Fabian said. “He removes him from the freezer, lets him thaw out, shoots the wife and kids, and then Chris Dawn.” Molander nodded. “But Braids would see right through that. Even his colleague would — whatever his name is…”

  “Arne Gruvesson.”

  “Right. Even Gruvesson would wonder why there wasn’t a big pool of dried blood on the floor.”

  “True. And that’s where this comes in.” Molander removed the lid from one of the evidence boxes and showed them the large syringe that had been in the kitchen. “I’m not positive, but considering the size of the barrel and the length of the needle, I’m guessing this is meant for horses or something similar. Not for people, anyway. But I imagine it would be perfect for emptying a body of blood and then spreading it all over a crime scene.”

  A week ago, Fabian would have shaken his head and accused Molander of watching way too many crime shows on TV. But after the last few days, this scenario sounded all too plausible.

  “It’s almost impressive,” Molander continued.

  “Impressive? How’s that?” Tuvesson crossed her arms. “We’re looking at a sadistic, troubled murderer who deserves a life sentence several times over.”

  “It depends on your perspective. He’s clearly out for money, and ready to do whatever it takes to obtain it. Now, I’m no expert in profiling, but I wouldn’t accuse him of being sadistic and troubled. Cold and merciless? Absolutely. But above all, he’s intelligent. If not for the fact that he happened to run into your side mirror, I doubt this would even have landed on our table.”

  “Here’s another one,” one of the assistants called.

  Fabian and Tuvesson followed Molander to the edge and looked down into the hole, where another black body bag had been unearthed.

  “Did you photograph it?” Molander asked.

  The assistant with the camera nodded.

  “Good, let’s bring it up.”

  They helped lift the bag from the hole and laid it on an unrolled tarp. Molander bent down and unzipped it, only to find another body bag. “Whatever this is, it’s thoroughly packaged,” he said, opening the inner bag.

  The stench that emerged made everyone recoil instinctively and turn their faces away. As expected, the bag contained a body, but this one was markedly different from the other two. The process of decomposition was well advanced; the body was covered in a roiling white layer of thousands upon thousands of maggots.

  “This one didn’t die last week.” Molander took a brush and began to remove the maggots from the partially rotted face, which had Asian features and looked to belong to a woman or young man.

  The body was dressed in a brown anorak and beige hiking pants. Crammed into one corner, amid the maggots, they could see a knitted cap with skulls on it.

  “Hold on, it’s that girl…” Tuvesson exclaimed, pointing.

  “What, you recognize her?” Fabian asked.

  Tuvesson nodded. “The paper girl. Don’t you remember? She found Seth Kårheden two years ago.”

  Fabian tried to make sense of that. What did Seth Kårheden have to do with this?

  “You know, the guy from your class,” she went on. “The one our killer switched places with.”

  “I know who he is.” Fabian would never forget how the class killer had fooled them. “But what does Seth Kårheden have to do —”

  “She was the one who found him dead in his bed while she was on her paper route.”

  “How do you know that?” Molander asked.

  “Irene and I questioned her. Soni Wikholm. I remember it like it was yesterday.”

  Molander laughed. “Impressive, how you remember everyone you’ve questioned throughout the years.”

  “I don’t.” Tuvesson crouched down for a better look. “Far from it. But this girl, I don’t know, there was something a little different about her.”

  “How so?” Fabian leaned over to see her face better.

  “The way she went into someone’s home like she did. She explained it by saying that she thought it was odd that Kårheden wasn’t up to yank the morning paper from her hand, since he’d been on vacation. But to enter his house just because of that — that’s not completely normal. I mean, how many paper carriers would do that, instead of just continuing their rounds? And then, when she saw the body tied to the bed with the moustache removed, do you know what she did?”

  Fabian and Molander shook their heads.

  “It’s sick, if you ask me. You think she called the police? No, she walked right up and started feeling the body. Lifted a leg and dropped it onto the bed. Want to know why? To ‘see what rigor mortis felt like.’” Tuvesson shook her head. “Apparently, she was writing a crime novel and considered it research.”

  “So she was extremely curious?”

  “I’d say she was extremely peculiar.”

  “Maybe that’s what happened here too,” Fabian said. “Say Chris Dawn was a stop on her paper route, and early one morning she sees something that piques her curiosity. She walks into the house and sees something she shouldn’t have.”

  “It’s a good theory, and I can imagine that’s exactly what happened with the guy and the dog,” Molander said. “The problem is, this girl died at least a year ago. Maybe even before that.”

  66

  All Theodor wanted was to get out of there. It didn’t matter how, if only he could escape the bed that just a few hours ago had been one big billowy sea of joy. If only he could pull on his clothes, sneak out of the house, and run straight home. Pretend he had never found Alexandra’s phone and that hellish video. Like it had never happened. Like they had never met.

  But he couldn’t. No matter how hard he tried, he was incapable of even moving. It was like his body had sunk into energy-saving mode, turning off every function one by one until he was struck lame. His heart was the only part of him still working, and it was beating triple-time. It hurt, like something was kicking him in the chest with each thump.

  Was this a panic attack? Or was he just scared? He recognized the feeling from when he was little, and he hated it more than any other.

  Nothing paralyzed him as thoroughly as fear. It could absolutely break him down and dissolve him into a puddle of nothing Back then he had overcome it with rage, and if he knew himself, that was exactly what would happen this time as well.

  If only she would wake up. He’d been waiting for hours now, waiting to put her back against the wall and ask what the hell was going on. For rage to take over. But Alexandra just lay there beside him, out cold. If not for the fact that her back rose and fell at even intervals, he wouldn’t know she was still alive.

  He couldn’t take his eyes off her. From her shoulder blades, which stuck up from her back like sand dunes in the Sahara, to the dark locks that fanned across her pillow and covered parts of her face. Did he still love her? Was that the problem? Did he still feel, somewhere under all that fear, like it was still the two of them no matter what happened?

  “Hi.”

  Theodor gave a start and realized that her eyes were open. She gave him a sleepy smile and waited for him to say something. “What’s the matter?” she said at last.

  What’s the matter…She wanted to know what was the matter? As if nothing had happened. As if that disgusting fucking video didn’t exist and everything was just sunshine and rainbows.

  “What the fuck do you think is the matter?”

  “Okay, apparently you woke up on the wrong side of the bed.” She turned away from him like she could just as easily sleep for another few hours.

  “At least I woke up. That’s more than you can say for that dude in the shopping cart.”

  She turned to face him, with no trace of her sleepy
quiet left.

  “Yeah, I saw the video.” He held up the phone like it was something he didn’t even want to touch.

  “Listen, it’s not what you think at all.” She sat up and wrapped the covers around herself.

  “No? So this isn’t you and your creepy friends shoving a perfectly innocent man into the path of certain death? Well, great. That means that every single newspaper online isn’t writing about you all, must be a totally different gang. I was worried there for a minute.” He touched his forehead and pretended to sigh with relief. “Then I guess it’s like you said, I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed.”

  “Theo, listen to me —”

  “In a fucking shopping cart! Do you know how goddamn sick that is? Huh?”

  “I know, but, I mean, it’s Henrik.”

  “No shit it’s Henrik! Don’t you think I figured that out? The question is, who was holding the camera? Who got off the ferry and let me walk around searching for hours? Who was standing on the highway, cracking up like it’s comedy hour at school? Who the hell are you?”

  She began to cry. To keep it from infecting him, Theodor got out of bed and started pulling on his clothes.

  “Hold on…Theo, please…let me explain.”

  She climbed out of bed and put on a T-shirt. But he didn’t want to wait, to give her the chance to make him listen to some forced explanation. He finally had the energy to get out of there, and if he didn’t do it now, he would be stuck forever.

  “It’s not what you think,” she cried, and he could hear her coming after him.

  The hall felt longer in this direction. But he was not about to run, to let the fear get the better of him again. Instead, he walked as fast as he could to the stairs.

  “He shoved the phone in my hand and told me to film. I swear, I had no idea what was happening when he knocked over that lady and started kicking her.”

  She was still crying, and something inside him wanted to stay and comfort her in his arms. But he was strong enough to force himself down the stairs and toward the front door.