Where Monsters Dwell (33 page)

“What do you mean?”

“There’s something personal about the murders. I think the killer knew both the victims well. Especially Gunn Brita Dahle,” said Felicia Stone. “He didn’t take the time to knock her unconscious before killing her; he slashed her throat immediately. Apparently while holding her tightly from behind. There’s something more intimate about that than hitting somebody with a crowbar or a metal pipe. But I think there’s some private motive for killing them both. At the same time, we can’t ignore the fact that this is a killer who has made a very big deal about the murders. He likes killing. We’re probably dealing with a killer with a deviant personality. A thrill killer. Also, he’s killed more than one person. The FBI defines a serial killer as someone who has killed at least three victims with a cooling-off period between each one. In our case we only have two that are confirmed. But Vatten’s son and wife could also be victims, which puts us over the magic number.”

“Let’s set aside the Vatten family and stick with the two murders we have right now. Who in our investigation had a personal relationship with both Gunn Brita Dahle and Efrahim Bond? I’m not as sure as you are that the killer must have had a closer relationship to Dahle than to Bond. The different MOs don’t have to mean anything but that it was easier to subdue Dahle, or that the killer felt more confident. I read somewhere that many murderers wish to be as close to the victim as possible at the moment of death. I still think that it has something to do with the book. The personal relationship has to be the killer’s relationship to this
Johannes Book
. After all, it’s the only link we have between Bond and Dahle.”

“I agree that the book is the link,” said Felicia, “but I don’t know whether it was that
in itself
that made him kill. Something here seems calculated.”

“You mean the killer has some rational reason for killing that we’re not seeing?”

“I don’t know. Are there rational reasons for killing?”

“How long have you been a homicide investigator, Felicia Stone?” he said, unable to keep a fatherly tone out of the question.

“Two years,” she replied.

“So, long enough to know that there are unfortunately far too many rational reasons for murder. What keeps the great majority of us from killing anyone is that there are almost always more good reasons not to do it.”

“So there’s more than one philosophical cop on this ferry,” she said with a smile. “I don’t know if I agree with your reasoning, but I was coming to a similar conclusion myself.”

*   *   *

After driving almost two hours from the ferry landing, they turned off the highway toward the farm of Isak and Elin Krangsås. It had started to rain, and the windshield wipers had been going nonstop the whole time. The peninsula of Fosen was a foggy and crepuscular landscape, with shining sheets of glacier-polished rock interspersed with heavy conifers. The buildings on the Krangsås farm looked like big, wet mushrooms standing at the top of a gently sloping green hill.

Singsaker had found the address in the telephone book. The GPS in the police car handled the rest. He had called ahead, saying as little as possible about the murder of Gunn Brita Dahle, although he knew that the couple had already heard about it. All he told them was that he was interested in finding out more about the
Johannes Book
.

Mr. and Mrs. Krangsås met them in the courtyard, both farmers approaching retirement age, he in overalls and she in a comfortable jogging suit.

They were invited into the main house, which faced the courtyard, and it looked like it needed a new coat of whitewash. They saw that the Krangsås family was not unaffected by recent interior design trends. The kitchen was done in stainless steel. The living room had a walnut floor and designer furniture that looked Italian. But although the interior of their house had been updated with a new look, they themselves had not. They no longer matched their own home.

Elin Krangsås had made a big stack of waffles. Singsaker took two and loaded them up with strawberries. Grown on their own farm, he surmised. Felicia Stone helped herself to one heart-shaped waffle. He could see from her expression that she categorized Mrs. Krangsås’s offering as “cold pancakes with no syrup.”

He went over to a big picture window at the end of the living room. Isak Krangsås came and stood next to him.

“This is quite a view,” said Singsaker as he looked out over the rolling countryside of Fosen. In between hillocks and woods he could make out the fjord, a black arc in the distance.

“You get used to it,” said Krangsås laconically.

“I understand it was a group of archaeologists who discovered the
Johannes Book.
”

“Well, I don’t know if I’d say they ‘discovered’ it. The book was on the shelf here in the living room.”

“But one of them realized what a rare book treasure it was, right?”

“Yes, that’s true. Jens Dahle, poor man. It’s so horrible what happened to Gunn Brita. How is he handling it?”

Singsaker felt bad. He should have offered his condolences long ago. The Dahle family had lived in the cabin next door for a long time.

“He’s doing the best he can,” he replied, feeling the cliché stick in his throat.

Krangsås stood there a while, staring at the view.

“For us the
Johannes Book
was just another volume on our bookshelf gathering dust.”

“What were the archaeologists working on back then?”

“They were going to excavate an old grave site that was apparently located on our property. It dates back hundreds of years, from around the same time as the graveyard at
Ø
rland church. But in the mid–fifteen hundreds all the graves were moved to the main churchyard, and the old grave site became overgrown and eventually ended up belonging to this farm. Now the remnants are under the meadow where the cattle graze. The grass is extremely lush in that pasture.” The farmer chuckled.

“How well do you know Jens Dahle?”

“Apart from the fact that his cabin is right next door, you mean? His parents ran a farm out here. Strange folks. But Jens has always been reliable.”

“Why did Jens Dahle live here at your farm during the excavation if he has a cabin right nearby?”

“That cabin doesn’t belong to him. It comes from Gunn Brita’s family. They’re from around here, too. At the time they weren’t yet married; she was much younger than he was. His parents’ farm is a little farther down the road. And I don’t think he visited them much in the last years of their lives.”

“Where is the cabin located?” asked Singsaker.

“It’s just beyond the trees where that green Nissan is parked. Can you see it? The people who own that car are probably guests at the cabin, but they parked up on the road. I’m guessing the path to the cabin is too muddy in this rain. I don’t know whose car it is. Gunn Brita and Jens often rent it out to friends and colleagues.”

Singsaker was out of the house before Isak Krangsås even finished speaking. On the way he called to Felicia to follow him. When he jumped in the driver’s seat he saw her come jogging through the rain toward the car. At the same time he noticed that he was still holding his plate of waffles. The jam was running down his hand.

“Greed is seldom pretty,” she remarked dryly as she climbed in with wet hair and fastened her seat belt. Flushed cheeks looked good on her. He tried to scarf down the waffle in three bites, but it took four. Then he licked the jam from his fingers, but not very elegantly.

“Why are you suddenly in such a hurry?” she asked.

“Weren’t you listening?”

“All I understood was Elin Krangsås about the embroidery on the tablecloth in ungrammatical English. You were all speaking Norwegian, as far as I could tell.”

“Yes, I suppose we were. Sorry. But the thing is, there’s a green Nissan parked on the road outside Jens Dahle’s cabin. Silvia Freud drives a green Nissan.”

Felicia Stone whistled as he drove off.

“So those two are in it together, Jens Dahle and Silvia Freud?” she asked.

“Not necessarily, although that’s an interesting angle. All I know is that Jens Dahle sometimes rents out the cabin.”

“Even a few days after his wife was murdered?”

“I agree that something doesn’t add up. But it could have been arranged before all this happened. The point is that Silvia Freud is there now.”

*   *   *

They followed the road until they were a few hundred yards from where the green car was parked; the cabin was still hidden by the trees. They pulled into a wide turnout and stopped.

“We’ll walk from here,” he said.

“Have you got your weapon?” she asked.

“Weapon?” he said, baffled. “What weapon? You’re not referring to my irresistible charm, are you?” For a moment he wondered where all these jokes were coming from. He’d never been funny before. At least not at work, and he rarely made Anniken laugh.

“Your gun, you big baboon,” she said.

They were still talking like they were from two different worlds. He saw that he’d have to explain more clearly.

“You’re not in Texas now,” he said.

“Virginia,” she corrected.

“You’re not there either. In Norway the police don’t go around playing cowboy.”

“So what do you do when you have to arrest psychotic thrill killers?”

“Well,” he said. “Either we fill out a form in triplicate and check out something to shoot with, which I neglected to do this time, or else we’re damned careful.” He got out of the car.

She followed him.

“And what do you think you’re doing?” he asked.

“I thought I’d be damned careful, too,” said Felicia Stone.

“All right then,” he said. “Just remember, this isn’t Texas.”

This time she didn’t correct him. She got the metaphor.

*   *   *

From the road they walked through the woods toward the cabin. They headed up a rise that sloped gently from where they’d parked, and then dropped steeply down toward the cabin on the other side. From the top they could see the cabin through the trees. It turned out to be an old log cabin with a sod roof. Something an archaeologist and a librarian would enjoy living in, Singsaker thought. The cabin seemed well kept. So did the outhouse, which was newer than the cabin and looked like something Jens Dahle might have built himself. The cabin stood in a clearing with tall grass and wildflowers growing all around. The dirt driveway was as muddy as Isak Krangsås said, which was why Silvia Freud had parked out on the road. They hunkered down in the moss to watch. Felicia Stone had plucked a blade of grass and was chewing on it. They were both getting soaked.

Then the cabin door opened. It was a weathered pine door that looked as though somebody long ago had probably had plans to stain it but never got around to it. The door opened slowly, with a suppressed creak. A tall man in a gray jacket and Italian shoes came out onto the thick slate flagstone placed in front of the door. He stretched and looked around, then held out a hand to confirm that it was still raining. She recognized him at once.

“Nevins,” she said.

“I assumed he’d already left the country,” said Singsaker, looking at her lips cautiously sucking on the blade of grass. A raindrop dripped from the end of it onto her wet jogging shoes.

“It’s obvious that he still has something to do here,” she said.

Nevins moved toward the outhouse. It had two doors. On one hung a big red heart. He opened it and went inside.

“Come on, let’s catch him with his pants down,” Singsaker said.

Instead of going straight down the steep hill where trees were packed densely together at the bottom, they moved along a ridge down to the rear of the outhouse. Felicia moved as silently as an ermine through the brush. He couldn’t say for sure which forest animal he resembled most, but they both reached the rear wall before Nevins emerged from the outhouse. He probably hadn’t heard them. They slowly crept around to the front. There they took up position on either side of the door. Singsaker noticed with satisfaction that the cabin across the clearing had no windows facing them.

He held up three fingers. Then two. Then only one. When he bent down the last finger to a fist, she took hold of the door handle and pulled. There was a loud bang and a sharp creak as if something were about to break. The door was fastened inside. For two seconds there was silence. Then they heard Nevins inside. He had stood up and was fumbling with his clothes. Felicia grabbed the handle again and yanked on the door. This time the door’s bolt yielded and the outhouse door flew open with a crash. Nevins fell toward them with his pants halfway down his thighs. Felicia was quicker than Singsaker and tackled Nevins. She grabbed his right arm and twisted it up to the middle of his back. He lay there gasping, but he didn’t yell. Singsaker pulled out his handcuffs and locked them onto Nevins’s hands, first one, then the other. It looked like something he’d done many times before.

“Not a sound, Nevins,” she said. Then she looked up at Singsaker. “Maybe you should read him his rights?”

“Here in Norway those things are taken for granted. Besides, strictly speaking we’ve broken a couple of rules already,” he said with a glance at Nevins’s naked butt.

She understood what he was hinting at and pulled up Nevins’s pants.

“Take him over to the car, would you?” Singsaker said.

She pulled Nevins up by his forearm to a standing position. Only now did he appear to collect himself enough to realize who was arresting him. He stared at her in fright.

“You? Here?”

“You didn’t expect that, did you? I can explain in more detail in the police car. Come with me.”

“But first, I’d like to know who’s in the cabin,” said Singsaker. Nevins looked at him as if he’d materialized out of nowhere. There was resignation in his eyes . He was an intelligent man. Smart enough to know when the jig was up.

“Miss Freud is inside. She’s…”

“I know very well who she is,” he said. “Anyone else?”

Nevins stood there silently staring at the Norwegian police officer.

“No, only her,” he said.

“Has she got a weapon?”