by Lena Bourne
Eva
After Mark left my hands didn’t stop shaking until after I had two shots of the Rakia he brought me from Kosovo. By the time I downed the second one I was ready to begin writing, and once I started gathering up all the information sent to me in various ways and by various sources, sentences and passages started unfolding in my mind. After I started typing, the work was all there was. No more worry, no more fear, just a cool, calm, and collected reporting of facts interwoven with my own observations, so much easier to see, understand and accept when they’re words on a page and not suffocating fears in my throat.
I made Christina’s deadline for The Guardian with half an hour to spare, then plunged right into two more articles for other venues. Sometime between the third and the fourth story I was working on, I rested my head on the table, promising I’ll just close my eyes a few minutes to clear my head. But I fell into a deep sleep instead.
My phone ringing startles me awake, my flailing hand as I try to reach for it without opening my eyes fully connects with the shot glass, sending it flying into the wall where it crashes into a million pieces.
“Damn,” I mutter just as I pick up the phone.
“Eva? Are you all right?” Mark sounds concerned. But vaguely so. Mainly he just sounds tired.
“Yes, I’m fine. Sorry about that, I broke a glass and it shattered. It’ll take me at least an hour to clean it up,” I hasten to explain.
“Sorry to hear that,” he says flatly. “Did you get any sleep?”
“Some,” I say, rolling my head to get rid of the crick in my neck from sleeping bent over the table. But motions only worsens the pain. “You?”
“No. Listen, I have to tell you something. Are you sitting down?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say, letting my annoyance at his flat tone creep into my voice—or is it my fear and anxiety?
“We found Sleeping Beauty,” he says. “And I’m 99 percent sure it is your friend Selima. I’m sorry.”
I gasp into the silence, my heart racing so hard my chest hurts.
“I knew I recognized her,” I mutter. “But I hoped I was wrong.”
“Me too,” Mark says, and for the first time since he called he sounds like the man I know and love, the man I’m starting to seriously believe I could spend the rest of my life with. Caring and warm and calm enough to shelter me through any storm. Solid like the four walls of a happy home.
“You can’t reveal that information yet, and I need to talk to you. You’ll have to tell me everything you know about her. Where she lived, who her clients were, who she fought with, anything you can think of, I’ll need to know it all.”
“Yes, of course,” I say, smarting at the pointed, almost harsh way he told me not to print anything about Sleeping Beauty—Selima—yet, but not enough to make an issue of it. I get it. He’s not doing it because he doesn’t trust me. He’s just trying to do his job as best he can. “Are you coming here now?”
“Not yet, I have to go to the office first,” he says, the brusque, businesslike tone back in his voice. “But I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“OK, I’ll be waiting,” I tell him.
I do understand he has a job to do. A very important job. But as the line goes dead, I don’t know how I’ll face the silence as I process this news. Until this moment, The Fairytale killer was a faceless menace. Although he’s by far the scariest psychopath whose criminal acts I’ve followed, there has been a safe distance between him and me. On some level, the murders were just another thing that was happening. Not so anymore. Now he’s hit close to home. Now it’s personal. Psycho bastard!
11
Mark
Otto Blackman was and remains the most efficient and effective investigator the US Military CID has ever employed. In his long career, he successfully solved more cases than any other two investigators combined, even things that were deemed unsolvable. His methods are studied, his cases are the basis for training, and no one knows exactly why he didn’t at least stay on as an instructor after he left CID. Rumor has it that he was simply too burnt out and that he couldn’t look at another crime scene without going into a nervous fit. But those are more whispers than anything else. And according to Thompson, they’re completely off the mark.
I would tend to agree with that assessment, as he seems completely sound of mind and body as he looks up from the magical table in the forensics lab when I enter it. He was over forty when he retired—forty-seven if I remember correctly—which was almost twenty years ago. That would put him in his sixties, but if I didn’t know that I’d say he was fifty-five at most. He’s tall, but with a slim build that makes him unimposing, and his hair, though almost white grey, is thick and bushy. He has it combed back from his chiseled face in two lazy waves. His light blue eyes are alert and bright as he stands and offers me his hand in greeting.
“Inspector Novak, I presume,” he says. “It’s good to finally meet you.”
“Likewise,” I mutter, painfully aware of my disheveled appearance even though I haven’t actually looked in the mirror yet. But I know my coat is wrinkled from getting in and out of the car all night, my face is covered with yesterday's five o’clock shadow combined with this morning’s, and my hair is without a doubt a mess from running my hands through it over and over last night. It’s a nervous tic of mine, doing that.
He nods and walks back to the table. I follow.
“I’ve been going over your case files all night,” he says. “As I already told you on the phone. It’s not much.”
He has a rich clear voice, more treble than bass. He sounds like a radio announcer, and it doesn’t quite fit with his physical appearance. I’d expect something wheezier or more high pitched from looking at him.
He has all the photos, reports, and lab results laid out in neat rows on the table. All of it together doesn’t take up even half of the long workspace. The photos sent to Thompson occupy a row to themselves, off to the side of the rest. A paper map of the city and surrounding area is unfolded on the other side of the table, augmented with separate maps of the countryside. Clearly, Marisa hasn’t been around to call up the maps he needs to the surface of the table digitally. A red circle marks the spot where Snow White was found this morning.
He’s holding a blue marker, looking at me from beneath his arched brows. “You found the fourth body where I suggested? At Anna’s Farm Museum?”
“Yes,” I say. “It was right where you assumed it could be.”
He walks to the map, removes a piece of clear tape from the farmhouse, and circles it with the pen. He then proceeds to remove several other pieces of clear tape from the maps, which were marking locations around the city.
“I’m glad my best guess as to her location proved the correct one,” he says, crumpling the pieces of tape and putting them in his pocket. “But I had several other suggestions ready to go.”
“It saved us hours, maybe days of work,” I tell him flatly.
He’s marked the other locations on the map as well—black for Cinderella, green for Snow White, and brown for Pocahontas. There are also several sheets of looseleaf paper covered with what can only be his slanted, spidery handwriting laid out with all the reports. Clearly, he’s more of a looking at the pictures type of investigator. Personally, I think pictures can only tell you so much, at least they only tell me so much. I need to be out there, looking at the victims, looking at the crime scenes, looking potential suspects in the eyes. Bits of cloth, fibers, blood, and such never form a comprehensive enough picture in my mind. I have to live and breathe the case. That approach to things has been the source of many bouts of burnout for me and several people have suggested I should take a step back, keep myself removed, but I’m useless that way. And there’s no way I’m trying that tactic with this killer.
“I would like to make it clear that I in no way wish to take over this case from you and relegate you to the sidelines,” he says, his bright eyes so focused on me, I can’t help but meet his gaze. “I under
stand all about getting possessive of cases, especially cases like this. This is still your case, Inspector Novak.”
He has been reading the files. And in them all about the last few weeks of my hunt, where I well and truly lost my compass while grasping at all those straws.
I nod, thinking it’d be inappropriate to thank him, and pull out a chair beside his. With his attention to every single written and documented detail, and my willingness to go without sleep to investigate them, we could very well make a good team.
“So, what’s your profile of this guy?” I ask, glancing at one of the sheets of paper covered with his spidery handwriting where he worked on that. I made a profile—white, 30-50 years old, closer to fifty, highly functioning psychopath, mommy issues, misogynist, possibly with no priors, possibly a narcissist, though I’d expect one of those to start contacting the press and the police with attention-grabbing letters or phone calls by now. Though all the attention he’s already been getting in the press worldwide could be enough for him.
I deliberately keep profiles vague, since constructing them is far from an exact science, they’re most accurate in hindsight once the perpetrator has been caught and analyzed and they can lead you in a completely wrong direction. They’re a breeding ground for making too many assumptions too soon, in other words.
He looks at the page with his notes and pulls it toward him. “From the nature of the crime and the actual crime scenes, I’d say we’re looking for an older man, late forties, early fifties, most likely white, cold and calculated, methodical, yet somehow also possessing a very active imagination. Maybe married with grown children, possibly a widower. Something set him off, I would guess. I’d be very surprised if he’s had any run-in with the police prior to this.”
“Not that he’s had a run-in with the police now,” I interject wryly.
To look at him, Blackman is more off-putting than not, giving the illusion of the perpetually displeased professor, but his voice corrects that picture. It’s rich and thick and has a very pleasant melody.
“You’ve interviewed a good number of people,” he says.
“At least a hundred.” I’ve not only interviewed but also re-interviewed most of them. “We questioned everyone from museum security guards to university professors, but all either had alibis, were out of the city or otherwise didn’t turn out likely suspects. The one I liked best was Professor Weber, a classic literature professor at the Berlin University of the Arts who has a very deep obsession with fairytales. But my second interview with him was in his office at the university, and the mess in there pretty much convinced me he’s not our man. His office was so cluttered with books and papers, and boxes of books and papers that his desk and bookshelves were barely visible. No way a disorganized man like that could craft those crime scenes. Plus, his actual fascination is more with obscure European fairytales, not the ones everyone knows, and especially not the Americanized versions of them.”
Blackman nodded throughout my explanation, and he continues after I stopped talking.
“There’s nothing disorganized about this killer, that’s for sure,” he finally says. “Except his choice of locations where he leaves the bodies. They’re all over the map and with seemingly no other forethought than availability and vague connection to the scenes he’s trying to evoke.”
“Vague?” I ask, leaning back in my stool to get a better look at him. “Sleeping Beauty in the tower, Cinderella cleaning a fireplace, Snow White in a forest…I wouldn’t call those vague.”
“Sleeping Beauty in a farmhouse?” he counters. “Cinderella on the steps of a museum that merely resembles a palace? Those are approximations, not up to par with his usual meticulousness.”
“He doesn’t have that many choices in Berlin now does he? Hardly any kind of medieval or Renaissance building is left after the whole city was razed by the Allies.”
“Which begs the question, why Berlin? Why choose this city if it takes away from his creations in such an obvious way?” he says.
“Such an annoying way, more like,” I say. “It’s got to be because this base is here. It’s the biggest US military presence in Europe and he clearly has a bone to pick with us. I had my suspicions about that from the start, that this was directly aimed at us, the US Military that is, but I was never able to prove that connection before they took me off the case. Well, I think Major General Thompson receiving those photos now proves it.”
“Or the man is just local and knows this city like the back of his hand,” Blackman muses. “He’s been planning this for a long time, that much is clear.”
He reaches over the table and pulls one of the photos towards us—Snow White with a man’s back in the foreground. “And it seems he could be younger, much younger. Early thirties I’d say from this photo, maybe even younger.”
The man in the photo has a broad back and chiseled biceps and something in the easy, natural way he’s holding his pose as he kneels on the floor by the bed suggests a young man in his prime. But it’s not a very good photo of him.
The door from the corridor opens and people start filing in, some carrying cameras, others large bags over their shoulders. More than twenty of them stream in, greeting us before resuming their trek to the offices in the back. All have nearly identical ashen faces of people who had gone too long without sleep and seen too much. Eager Ross is the last to enter, his normally perky step and bright face just as ashen as the others’.
“You will start processing the evidence right away?” I ask him, though it’s actually more of a statement, an order, really.
He nods. “Of course, sir.”
The anticipation of getting new evidence in a case usually fills me with hope and a new wind to get back to the investigation. Now that anticipation is a sour knot in the pit of my stomach. By the end of the day, tomorrow morning at the latest, I’ll be facing a pile, no, a mountain of evidence to sift through. That’s how much of it there was after the first two cases, and I’m expecting more now. None of it led anywhere then, and I’m not hopeful that this new mountain of it will either. There’ll just be a lot more of it.
“I’ll stay here and wait for the evidence to be processed,” Blackman says. “You go home and get some sleep. You look like you need it.”
I nod as I slip off the stool. I have no intention of going home or sleeping anytime soon, but I’m more than happy to let him sift through the preliminary evidence.
“Call me if you or they find anything,” I say, and he assures me he will.
I do need sleep, I realize as I leave the lab and the grey walls of the corridor are flickering before my eyes the whole way. But my phone’s been buzzing in my pocket practically the whole time Blackman and I spent talking, and I mean to find out what every one of those buzzes was about before I even think of going to sleep. In the first forty-eight hours we have the best chance of finding a lead, and we’ve already wasted more than half of them driving from one crime scene to another. But I’m still convinced that if this monster makes any mistakes, they’ll be revealed right after the bodies are found, not weeks or months after. The last time, I didn’t get the chance to be on the scenes right after they were found, but it’s different now, and I’m going to make every minute count.
12
Mark
I asked Schmitt to meet me at the entrance to the park that surrounds the river where Pocahontas was found. It’s the first one of the crime scenes and therefore the one that’s already been released. The fat grey clouds are even darker now and there’s even less light than there was at dawn.
As I wait for him, marveling at the mild weather after the cold of the last two days and thankful they were able to process this scene before the snowfall we’re likely getting soon, the last of the police cruisers leaves. I’m suddenly alone here, and the peace of this place, the natural serenity, and the shifting pressure in the sky, no doubt are making me feel lightheaded.
It’s not a bad place to die. Peaceful. Serene. Away from the noise and di
rt of the city. But Pocahontas didn’t die here. It’s abundantly clear that this killer has a workshop somewhere, probably a big place, out of the way, abandoned in an abandoned part of the city. There’s no lack of such places around here, and without a solid lead, we have no idea where to actually start searching for it. Even now, more young women could be dying there, being bled, photographed, defaced, prepared to be put on display. Treated like things, not people.
All night I’ve been detached, checking each scene methodically, storing the information, not letting the emotion of it in. Maybe that was a mistake. Either way, it’s time to walk the path of this killer.
“Walk with me,” I tell Schmitt as he pulls up beside me and opens his door. I don’t wait for him to get out of his car before entering the park.
The path I’m walking is narrow and constructed of packed, crumbly gravel which is kept free of snow by virtue of the dense foliage and tall trees lining it. Most of them are leafless, but there are so many that their spindly, spiky branches still offer enough cover to protect the path from the snow.
Soon the path forks off into another path, and another after that, but I keep to the one I’m on. The one that will take me to the Havel river, which I can already smell. Water mixed with the decay of the countless leaves that found their way into it last fall, the freshness of the former not doing much to mask the latter. It’s a natural smell, just like everything about this park is natural. Except for the princess.
“What are you hoping to see?” Schmitt asks as he catches up. “The woman who found the body is down at the station, giving a detailed description of the only other person she saw here last night. A man. She even snapped a photo of his back. Don’t you want to talk to her?”
“Later,” I say and keep walking. There’s very little evidence that people were working here all night and most of the morning, the tracks of the gurney which must have been used to transport the body to the hearse the most pronounced.