by Lena Bourne
He called me Snow White.
The blond man Mirela described. Selima’s boyfriend. The one who lured her to her death with his sweet voice and handsome face. The Fairytale Killer.
Why didn’t I run?
Why didn’t I recognize him?
Why didn’t I fight?
I’ve taken several self-defense classes. I have a black belt in Judo. But I was dazzled by his charming smile, awed by his chiseled body, and hypnotized by the lustful desire in his eyes.
Mark will find me.
And hopefully, forgive me for being stupid enough to get snatched.
And hopefully, before I’m dead and cold and posed as my least favorite of all the princesses.
24
Mark
I was right about the junkies. By ten PM several of them were shaking as though they’ve spent the last day in the freezing cold and not the pleasantly warm cells and interview rooms of the police station. More of them were puking faster than the mess could be cleaned up.
Eventually, more and more started telling the same story, about a blond man who looked too healthy and too strong to be one of them hanging around, claiming to be one of them, hitting on the girls, never actually sleeping in the squat but always there in the evenings. He told everyone he worked security in one of the clubs in the area, but had lost his job recently and had nowhere to live, and by all accounts, no one doubted him, because he looked like a bouncer.
“He didn’t belong, you know, man,” the junkie I’m interviewing says thorough chattering teeth. His face is covered with festering acne, and there’s a nasty sore in the right corner of his mouth which I don’t think will go away without medical intervention. A thick cloud of stench surrounds him—sour vomit, greasy hair, sweat, and the mix of various body odor varieties mixed into one single ball of unbearable stench. I had to fight not to gag each time I got a particularly rank whiff of it. Schmitt walks in, but the junkie barely notices. His eyes are focused on me, but something tells me he can’t even see my face properly.
“He hit on this girl I was sort of seeing and then she was just gone one day, so I followed him one night, to see if he took her somewhere,” he says. “I would’ve challenged him, but he was too big and too strong. He would’ve killed me. And the girl, I didn’t know her that well and she wasn’t all that far gone yet, she might have gone home or something, I didn’t want to get beat up if she just went home, you know. Man, I need a hit.”
He’s been rambling like this for the past half an hour. They all were. But he’s the only one who’s offered more than a description of the guy, and the fight with the Russian thugs.
“You followed him?” I ask, patiently and friendly-like. Both my patience and friendliness are completely faked. “Where to?”
“This apartment, not far from the squat, a regular apartment, the kind you rent—”
“Where?” I ask before the rambling starts again.
“I don’t know the address. She wasn’t there. I stayed looking up at the windows of the apartment and never saw her there, so I left. She never came back, but he did, a couple of days later. But like I said, she might’ve gone home,” he says.
“Who was she?” I ask. “What was her name?”
“Lara,” he says. “Maybe Lana. She wasn’t from here, she was from Denmark.”
I shoot Schmitt a look and he’s already looking at me pointedly, probably thinking the same thing I’m thinking. The first Sleeping Beauty was Lara Dunholm, a beauty queen from Denmark.
“Can you show us where the apartment was?” Schmitt asks.
He nods, his eyes sparkling. At the prospect of getting out of here, no doubt.
“Good,” I say and follow Schmitt out of the interview room.
“Can we bring him in if we find him?” I ask, since I’m not sure what we just heard is enough to detain someone under German law.
“I’ll make it work,” he says determinedly and tells me to wait close by. I go into the small kitchen and drink two glasses of water before pouring myself the last of the coffee. My headache’s threatening to come back.
He has a group of uniformed officers and a prison transport van ready to go within a quarter of an hour.
So less than an hour later we’re standing in front of a low apartment building on the northern edge of the Prenzlauer Berg district, not far from where the new buildings are going up. This one’s seen better days. Graffiti so thick it’s hard to decipher any one of them individually cover the grey facade, and the front door, once grand, tall and heavy, is hanging off the hinges and gaping open because of it.
“That one,” the junkie says, pointing at the tall, dark window of a ground-floor apartment to the left of the door.
“We go in and knock?” Schmitt asks and I nod.
“What about me? Can I split?” the junkie asks. “I told you what you needed to know.”
“Soon,” I promise him. “We just need you to confirm that we got the right guy first.”
After that, we’ll probably have to let him go.
I don’t envy the officer that will have to stay with him in the squad car, because he is rank.
Schmitt instructs his officers to make sure all the exits from the building are secured, then motions me and two uniformed officers to accompany him into the building.
The hallway is barely any warmer than outside and the fluorescent bulb which turns on automatically as we enter gives off more noise—a high pitched buzzing—than actual light.
The uniforms get into position, one on each side of the door, while I stand a step behind Schmitt at the door. He knocks loudly, the police knock designed to gain the upper hand before any of the action has even started and which is the same the world over.
“Police, open up!” he yells and takes half a step back from the door.
He has to knock and call two more times before the sound of locks being unlocked is finally followed by a bleary-eyed man wearing just boxers and a t-shirt opens the door.
“What is this?” he asks, the aggression in his voice dampened by early morning slurring.
“I’m Detective Schmitt of Criminal Investigations Unit, Homicide Division,” Schmitt answers. “And you are wanted for questioning in relation to a missing person case.”
“I thought you said you worked homicide,” the man says mockingly.
Schmitt looks as tired as I feel, and he winces at the question. “We will have time enough to chat at the station. Put on some clothes and come with us.”
He says it with enough power and authority that the man seems to be out of mocking questions. Schmitt and the officers wait at the door, but I need some fresh air. My headache is back, and it’s getting worse.
And the night is just beginning. Even though it’s almost morning, grey already pushing away the darkness to the east. I hope this isn’t another false start. I don’t know how many more of those I can take.
The junkie took one look at the man we brought out of the building and confirmed it’s the man he knows from the squat. But that was as far as our luck held.
Schmitt and I have been taking turns interviewing the man for the past eight hours, taking turns with him in the stuffy, windowless interview room. It’s so stuffy and close inside I’m seeing double if I move my head too fast. And my whole back, from the top of my head to my ass, is one giant pain that I can’t even tell the origin of.
First, the guy lied about his name, saying it was James Hayes. Then he finally admitted he was Robert Greaves and after that, he refused to say much more. His DNA is on file from the rape charge he faced a few years ago, but the comparison to the DNA found on the bodies proved inconclusive. He refused to give another sample. As is apparently his right over here too.
At first, Schmitt balked at my suggestion to get his DNA from a soda bottle we offered him, saying he’s not sure how legal that is. But he saw it my way once I explained that we just need to either eliminate or confirm him for now, and we’ll worry about the actual evidence later. Maybe i
t’s not the best way to handle this, but we’re running out of options and leads. I’m afraid the longer we dally the more of a chance that a new body will turn up.
I’m on my way to the lab at the base with Greaves’ soda bottle sealed in a large evidence bag. I’m so tired that the headlights of on-coming cars are blinding me worse than usual and leaving disturbingly bright, zigzagging flickers at the edges of my vision after they pass. Getting to the base without crashing will probably use up the last of my luck.
Marisa’s behind her wall of computers and Blackman is in his office, his back turned to the empty main room. A map of Berlin and the surrounding area is taking up much of its interactive surface, red dots glowing in the spots where the bodies were found. Someone drew a blue line to connect them all, but if they form a pattern it’s a very confusing one. Completely random, if you ask me.
I know better than to barge through the stainless steel doors to the area where the actual labs are, so I press the intercom, and tell the woman who answers what I need. Blackman is standing in the doorway of his office looking at me as I explain to the woman in a white jumpsuit complete with hood and goggles that comes to collect the evidence bag what I need done. And that I need it done fast.
“So you’ve taken my advice and are checking the rape kits from those other murders?” Blackman says, his tone flat.
I shake my head. “Those didn’t match. This is Robert Greaves’ DNA. The former soldier’s accused of rape and discharged a couple of years ago.” I walk over to him after the lab tech leaves.
“That’s disappointing,” he says as he steps back into his office. I follow. “I really thought we had something there.”
“That’s what this case is, one disappointment after another,” I say, checking his desk. As far as I can tell everything is still laid out exactly as it was when I was here last. “Did you discover anything new?”
“Nothing. This case truly is frustrating in how every piece of evidence leads to a dead-end,” he says, sinking into a chair with a sigh.
I don’t follow suit. “I’m going to get a few hours of sleep while this DNA is processing. Maybe this will finally lead somewhere.”
“Hope dies last. Isn’t that what they say?” Blackman says, turning to me and grinning, a mocking gleam in his eyes. I don’t appreciate it.
“Something like that, yes,” I say and take my leave.
I am going home, but not before I visit Eva’s apartment one more time. I’ve been calling her every couple of hours, each time promising it’s the last time, and she still hasn’t returned any of my calls. I even walked by her apartment building last night but didn’t go in. All the windows were dark anyway, but they should be lit up now, as she wakes up and gets ready for her day. I might not be great at relationships, or even middling, but what we had was something great and I deserve more than being ignored. I deserve a straight answer and one way or another I will get it.
25
Eva
I think he gives me something to deaden my mind. Each time the fog in my mind starts to lift, he comes. He’s soft-spoken and gentle, even his breath barely audible. He spoon-feeds me a thin overcooked vegetable broth. I spit the first spoonful out, aiming at his face, but I missed, hitting my bare arm instead.
He admonished me softly and gently as he wiped it away with a warm, moist cloth that smelled of lemons. Like those towels they give you on airplanes.
I demanded he untie me. I demanded to know why I was here. Where here was. I didn’t expect answers, and I didn’t get them. The darkness behind the blindfold and lying on my back, tied down to this smelly bed are starting to drive me crazy. But only for those few minutes when my mind is clear. After that the fog is everything. I hang somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, only that clear and alert part of my mind awake, buried deep beneath the fog and afraid. Terrified.
I spit out the second spoonful he tried to feed me too.
The softness and gentleness were gone then. He poured the soup down my throat, then pinched my nose together and held my mouth shut until I swallowed. Over and over he did this, until the fog started rolling in thick over my thoughts again. The drug must be in the soup.
The next time he came, I accepted the spoon and ate on my own.
I have no idea how long I’ve been kept here.
Days, weeks, months? Nothing makes any sense. Except for the knowledge that I’m to be his next dead princess. That’s always the first thought that lights up when the fog in my brain parts.
26
Mark
The windows of Eva’s place were dark, but I went up anyway, banged on the door, and called her name until several neighbors came to see what was going on. Including a little girl still in her nightgown, clutching a stuffed rabbit, long wavy blonde hair falling around her face, and nearly covering it. She followed her father into the hall.
He’s the one that told me he’s calling the police if I don’t leave right away, and I almost told him to go right ahead and do that, but the sad, scared little eyes looking up at me from behind his back silenced me better than his angry threats.
I went to my apartment after that and fell asleep in my clothes and shoes, and on top of the covers, no less.
My headache and backache are only slightly better when my landline phone wakes me with its modern, robotic imitation of the classic ringtone. It takes me a while to know where the ringing is coming from since I don’t think I ever got a call on the landline since moving in here.
“Hold for Major-General Thompson,” a woman’s voice says once I finally pick up the phone and grumble a hello into it.
“You’re a hard man to get a hold of this morning, Major,” Thompson says. I check my watch. It’s nearly noon.
“I came home for a couple of hours to sleep,” I say.
“Only right,” he says. “That file you requested, it will be here in two days.”
“I completely forgot to put in the request for it,” I mutter, not realizing I spoke aloud until hearing my own voice.
“That was just a formality,” Thompson says. “I was able to request the file, but it wasn’t easy. General Parcivall was an important man, with many friends in high places. A few of them have already called me, demanding to know why I’m requesting his file.”
“His print was found on one of the photos the Germans received. The Snow White photo, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Yes, Major, I know that. But I didn’t mention it to any of the callers,” Thompson says. “You can check the file when it arrives, but it’s for your eyes only, is that clear?”
“Yes, Sir,” I say automatically.
“And we won’t be mentioning the Parcivall name in connection with this investigation until it’s clear that there is a connection. Mention it to no one, not even Colonel Blackman. I’ve already spoken to Sargent Ross and gave him the same instructions. Is that understood as well?”
“Yes, Sir,” I say again, completely alert now. Something in Thompson’s voice tells me it was hard getting the file, that those calls he received weren’t just inquisitive in nature.
“You understand I have to be adamant about this, given how you handled this investigation in the past,” Thompson says, a little less harshly.
“This time the connection is clear cut and obvious, Sir,” I say. If not logical in the least. But I don’t add that.
“Keep me posted,” he says and hangs up.
I sit on the edge of the bed and rub my eyes, which feel like hot sand’s been poured into them while I slept. I dare not stretch, afraid that’ll make the kinks in my neck and back worse.
Shower first, I decide, hoping cold water will wake me up.
It does, somewhat, and my eyes are more or less back to normal too, as I finally check my phone. I have twenty unanswered calls, most from the base, three from Schmitt, none from Eva.
I check the thirty texts before returning any of the calls.
One of those is from Eva. From her work phone, the one she never calls
or texts me from unless it’s an emergency and her personal phone is out of battery.
My hands are shaking and my chest is compressed like a heavy rock is resting on it.
Find me.
I read it five times before I finally accept that’s all she wrote.
It’s not like her to play games. And she’d always sooner say too much than too little, even if it gets her in trouble.
The rock pressing against my chest is as heavy as an elephant as I dial the number she texted me from. The annoying robotic lady that answers tells me my call cannot be completed at this time, first saying it in German then repeating it in English. The standard message when a phone is off or out of range. I call her personal phone next and this one rings. Hope welling up in my chest as the third ring is interrupted by someone picking up is so strong it nearly chokes me.
“Hello?” a timid female voice answers, dashing that hope right in the bud.
“This is Major Mark Novak, I would like to speak to Eva,” I say in a split second decision I’d better handle this professionally and not like a maniacal jilted lover.
“She’s…umm…is that the woman whose phone this is?” the timid voice asks.
“Who is this?” I ask. “Why are you answering this phone?”
“I’m Gitta. I work at Buch Cafe Haus on Karl-Marx-Allee,” she says. “A blonde lady lost this phone outside a couple of days ago. We thought she’d come back for it since she’s a regular, but she hasn’t and it’s been ringing and ringing. So I picked up.”
I didn’t know fear this strong could be felt. It’s in my veins, carried everywhere by my blood.
“I’ll be right there,” I say. “Please don’t go anywhere until I get there.”
I tell myself over and over that everything’s fine, that this is all just a misunderstanding, that she just lost her phone and doesn’t know it yet. Somehow, it lets me get dressed, instead of just running there half-dressed and with no shoes on.