Where Monsters Dwell (36 page)

“And the book?”

“Both books—both the genuine
Johannes Book
that Silvia stole and the copy I took from the book vault—are safely stowed in Jens Dahle’s cabin, as far as I know.”

“Do you know why they chose that particular cabin?”

“I heard Silvia tell Nevins that she had a key to it. She borrowed it a few weeks ago from Gunn Brita and hadn’t given it back. It was probably just a good place to hide out while they planned their next move.”

All three of them sat there in silence. Singsaker munched on a waffle and started to share Felicia’s craving for a burger.

“But there’s one thing I wonder about,” he said. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me anything about this when I was at your place taking your statement?” The way he said “taking your statement” sounded stiff and awkward in English, and he looked over at Felicia to make sure that she hadn’t noticed.

“I did just say that I’d been a fool. I admit it. I’ve probably read too many mysteries. I thought I’d solved the crime, but I wanted to be sure before I went to the police. But it turns out I’m better at solving fictional cases.”

“Obviously. It didn’t occur to you that police work depends on experience, among other things?”

“Go ahead, rub it in. But there’s one thing we can all learn from this situation,” she said with smug confidence. “This case does have one thing in common with many crime novels.”

“What’s that?”

“Diversion. The case of Silvia Freud and this Nevins guy has nothing to do with the murders. The killer is still out there, and poor Jon is still missing, while we’re sitting here talking and wasting time.”

“But how can you be so sure that Jon Vatten isn’t the killer?” Felicia Stone asked.

“Don’t tell me,” said Singsaker. “You just know it, right?”

“That’s right,” said Siri Holm. “I just know it.”

He could tell that Felicia liked the young, bold librarian. He wasn’t sure whether this was a good thing or not.

His cell phone rang. It was Lars again. This time Singsaker turned the phone all the way off.

29

At that moment Isak
Krangsås came into the living room. He had been in the cowshed and was standing on the dark-brown hardwood floor in manure-covered boots.

“So, have you made any progress?” he asked in Norwegian.

“We’ve taken quite a detour,” replied Singsaker, also in Norwegian. In a way it seemed absurd to speak English with the sturdy farmer.

“There’s one thing I always thought was a little odd about this whole
Johannes Book
matter,” Krangsås said. “I’ve heard some things about the book. I’ve signed a bunch of papers, and I’ve received letters of thanks from the Gunnerus Library, the whole deal. But I never heard anything more about the knives.”

“The knives?” said Singsaker, straightening up. He noticed that Siri Holm did the same.

“Yes. I had a big leather bundle full of knives, and there were some drills in there, too. According to my father, they apparently belonged with the
Johannes Book
. The gentleman who came here to the farm with the book also brought these knives. They were very old, but many of them were in good condition. I gave them to Jens Dahle when he took the
Johannes Book.
I thought I would hear more about them, too. A book with a bunch of knives as accessories, that’s a really good story. But it was like the knives just disappeared.”

“Did any of these knives look like a scalpel?” Singsaker asked eagerly.

“Yes. Several of them could have been surgical instruments, but old-fashioned ones. I wouldn’t let a doctor use them on me, I’ll tell you that.”

Several thoughts began whirling around in Singsaker’s head.

“This farm that belonged to Jens Dahle’s parents,” he said, just to start somewhere. “Where is it located?”

“It’s down by the fjord. Just keep going down the road that goes past the first cabin, the way you drove before.”

“The first cabin?”

“Yes. The second cabin was built where the Dahle farm once was. The whole farm burned down. That’s how Jens’s parents died. They say it was arson, but they never caught the person who did it. Jens built a cabin on the property several years later. So when Jens Dahle talks about the cabin, it’s the place on the old Dahle farm he’s talking about. The place that Gunn Brita’s family owned they call ‘the storehouse’ for some reason. Don’t ask me why. The family always lived at the storehouse whenever they were out here together. The cabin was Jens’s place. Somewhere he could be alone. Gunn Brita said that Jens didn’t like her to go there with him. But I don’t think it mattered to her. ‘A man needs a place to himself,’ she said.”

“Does that mean that if Jens Dahle’s kids say that he was at the cabin, they mean the place down by the water?” asked Singsaker, the pieces beginning to fall into place.

“That’s right,” said Krangsås.

“Do you know if the couple would ever leave the kids alone in the cabin, I mean, the storehouse?”

“The kids are quite independent. I don’t think they would have had any problem being alone for a few hours. They would have just played with those little game machines, I think. Isn’t that what kids do these days?”

“Do you know if Jens Dahle has a boat at the second cabin?” Siri Holm broke in.

“Yes, he does. One of those really fast speedboats. He uses it sometimes to go to the city. He says it doesn’t take any longer than driving his car.”

“In other words: If he wanted to get back and forth to Trondheim in a few hours without being registered electronically anywhere, he could simply take the boat? And if anyone asked the kids where he’d been, they would say that he was at the cabin?”

A text came in with a ping. Felicia Stone took out her iPhone from the pocket of her all-weather jacket, which she hadn’t taken off, and read what it said.

“Well, anything’s possible, I suppose,” Krangsås said. “You don’t think that Jens Dahle has anything to do with this case, do you? He’s not the type. He’s such a calm and rational person.”

Felicia cleared her throat.

“I can see that you’re in the midst of a serious conversation,” she said, in English. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I think you ought to hear this, Odd.”

“OK,” he said impatiently.

“The names you asked me to check for entry to the USA around the time of the murder in Richmond,” she went on.

“Let me guess. You got a hit on Jens Dahle.”

“How did you know?” Felicia asked, looking at him with something that approached admiration but maybe was just surprise.

“If you understood Norwegian, you would have known, too,” he said. “Come on, I’ll explain in the car.” He got up and walked toward the door.

The last thing he said before leaving the room was directed at Siri Holm:

“No, you stay here.” It bothered him that he sounded like her father.

*   *   *

“But why me? Isn’t this all a mistake?” said Vatten. “Don’t you know I’m the prime suspect in the case? If you’d left me alone, I probably would have been arrested, and you’d never be caught.”

Jens Dahle had hung Vatten from a roof beam in the cabin. He was hanging by his feet with his head about three feet above the floor. There he hung, looking at his killer upside down. The perspective made Dahle seem somehow supernatural.

“Maybe. But I did make one mistake, and that was not finishing you off,” said Dahle, studying the tip of a scalpel. “First of all, you had sex with that fat whore. But you didn’t think you could get away with it, did you? Don’t you think I noticed the bottle of red wine and the two glasses when I came to the library last Saturday? Who do you think cleaned that up? I got a confession out of her before I cut her throat. Nice of you two to leave the book vault open for me. I was able to do the whole job inside and then lock it afterward. That’s how I got such a head start on the police.”

“I can’t remember, but I think you’re right. I did have sex with your wife. But wouldn’t a prison sentence for murder have been punishment enough?”

“I thought so, at first. But I’d made a mistake. Do you remember the bit of parchment I sent you after I killed your family? Do you remember what was written on it?”

This is the first time he’s openly admitting it, Vatten thought. Ever since he saw Gunn Brita’s corpse, he’d known that the same person had killed Hedda and Edvard. But here at last was the confession.

“‘The center of the universe is everywhere and its circumference nowhere,’” Vatten said.

“That’s right. I knew you had a good memory. Well, I was sloppy and talked a little too much about that quotation to a detective. That it wasn’t very smart of me. I know you didn’t tell the police about the parchment. That says a lot about you. But if, at some point, once you no longer saw any way to avoid being convicted of the murders, you might have changed your mind. And if you showed the parchment to the police, I’m afraid this Singsaker might remember our conversation.”

“I burned it. It was Hedda’s skin,” Vatten said.

Dahle was utterly still. Vatten could hardly hear him breathing. The blood was throbbing in his temples. How long can someone hang upside down before he passes out? he wondered.

“Well, it doesn’t matter,” Dahle said at last. “I really brought you here because I want to finish what I started. When I’m done with you, the rest won’t matter. Oh, and the parchment wasn’t from your wife. It was a little piece from the boy’s back. A first-class specimen. So soft and supple.”

Now everything was about to go black for Vatten. Only his rage kept him from fainting.

“You must be wondering why I took them. I don’t know if it will be any consolation if I tell you that it was random. I’d seen all of you in the neighborhood many times, and I knew your routines: You often came home late from work; she seldom locked the door. Do you remember all the newspaper articles about how they vanished without a trace? That was just luck. Beginner’s luck. It wasn’t planned well. That afternoon I opened the gate, went to the front door, and rang the bell. When she opened the door, the boy was standing by her side. I hit her on the head with the crowbar and tossed her right into the trunk of my car. I had to chase the boy through the house. But he thought the way most kids do. I found him under the bed and dragged him out by his hair. A kick to his head was enough to subdue him. Then I put him in the trunk next to his mother and drove off. I remember how amused I was with that eyewitness who claimed he’d been sitting on his balcony all evening. Before I moved in on your place, I sat and watched him. He was drinking beer and went inside every fifteen minutes to get another one. Apparently he stopped to take a leak each time, too. He was inside the apartment almost as much as he was outside on the balcony. Why the police trusted his account, I have no idea. When he went back for his fourth beer, I began, and managed to finish the job before he came back out. To this day I don’t know why he told the police he’d been sitting on the balcony the whole time. I’ll probably never know. As I said, beginner’s luck. It wasn’t a sophisticated plan, just a gamble that succeeded.”

Vatten was seeing double now. Jens Dahle had two heads. He saw two whetstones and two scalpels. He couldn’t tell which one was real and which was the hallucination. For some reason his thoughts turned to Silvia Freud, the bookbinder and conservator at the library. The last time he talked to her she was working on producing a copy of the
Johannes Book
. He recalled that she’d showed it to him, and he couldn’t see any difference between the copy and the real book. And now, here was Jens Dahle. But what did it matter that his murders were copies of historical murders? Had that meant anything at all for Hedda and Edvard? Without knowing why, he saw Hedda before him at her sewing machine. She often liked to sit there, sewing. Making clothes for Edvard and him. It occurred to Vatten that she had sewn the pants he was wearing. Corduroy pants. He doesn’t take the pants off, he thought, picturing Gunn Brita’s corpse, which had been flayed with her pants on. Fortunately he doesn’t take our pants off. That was a peculiar form of triumph. His vision was getting hazier. Still, he managed to ask one last question:

“Why?”

“Why?” Jens Dahle emitted a creepy laugh. “You’re asking more than is good for you to know, Vatten. You’ll never understand me. You’ll never understand the obsession, or the longing for a completely open human being. For muscles, sinews, blood vessels that are still pumping blood, the breath of a person utterly without a mask. And afterward, words on dead skin. But enough chitchat, Vatten. How do you prefer your scalpel: sharp, medium, or dull?”

*   *   *

“Goddamn it to hell!” Singsaker swore in Norwegian, but continued in English. “Amateurs. We’ve been a bunch of bloody amateurs. What about some control questions? That’s standard routine when you’re questioning children. Pappa was at the cabin, you say, but were you two at the cabin with him? So fucking sloppy.” The car spit gravel as it roared out of the Krangsås courtyard. After turning onto the road down toward the cabins, he stomped on the gas.

“Take it easy,” said Felicia. She didn’t mean his driving. “Things have moved so fast in this case. It’s only been a few days since the first murder and we already know who did it. It’s not easy to interrogate kids. You have to be so cautious, especially when they’ve just lost their mother.”

“It’s still a huge misunderstanding, and it gave Jens Dahle an alibi for long enough to do God knows what. I should have interviewed the kids myself.”

“Could you please forget about the kids?” she said. “Now we know who the killer is. Focus on that.”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing,” he said with sudden insight. “Why do you think I’m so stressed-out?”

She smiled at him. At that moment her phone chirped.

“New report. Things are really happening fast,” she said. They had passed the turnoff to the cabin where Silvia Freud and Nevins had been.

“My people back in Richmond found an unknown e-mail address for Efrahim Bond. After a lot of red tape it seems we’ve gotten access to the account. Bond’s inbox contained only one thing: a love letter from Gunn Brita Dahle. It turns out they had an affair during the conference last spring.”