Thirteen, Fourteen... Little Boy Unseen (18 page)

“He grew up here in Karrebaeksminde,” I said. “That much I know. He told me we went to the same school. We even lived on the same street.”

“He did grow up here,” Sara said. “But so did I, and as you probably know by now, I know some people around here. I’ve asked around a little. And we have some mutual friends. One of them just called me back and told me that Henrik is well known in the gay circles around town. He is often seen at Pan’s. The town’s only gay bar.”

I shook my head. “But that makes no sense. He was madly in love with Leonora?”

“No. He’s not gay. But his sister is. A couple of years ago, she was the victim of an ugly hate crime that left her beaten half to death. It happened right after she had left the bar. Today, she lives in an institution for the handicapped. Henrik has since taken it upon himself to keep the streets and bars safe for the gays. He parades in there, wearing his uniform, every Friday and Saturday night. The bar likes to have him there. It makes the guests feel safe.”

“Wow, that’s a sad story,” I said.

“I know,” Sara replied.

I looked at David. “Sure gives him motive, though.”

“The best one we’ve seen yet.”

“Let’s go talk to him. Feel him out a little,” I said, and grabbed my jacket.

“With pleasure,” David said, and followed.

52

W
E FOUND
Henrik Pedersen at the police station downtown. He was sitting behind his desk with his legs up, drinking coffee, and playing candy crush. He smiled and sat up straight when he saw us.

“Rebekka? What a great surprise.”

“Well, we were just in the neighborhood and wanted to see how the investigation was going.” I looked at the screen. “I see you’re working hard.”

Henrik Pedersen blushed and removed the game. “I was just on a little break. Besides, I’m not investigating, you know that. That’s not my field.”

“I know. We were just thinking about the case with the five killings, and wondered if you had looked into the gay angle?”

Henrik Pedersen looked perplexed. “What do you mean?”

“The pastor was speaking out against homosexuals. The therapist had a program where they apparently thought they could turn kids away from being gay with the right influences. I don’t know the details, but something like that. The Toft couple had a daughter who was gay that they wouldn’t accept.”

Henrik Pedersen nodded pensively. It looked like it was the first he’d heard of it. “I see. That is an interesting angle. But how does Leonora fit in that?”

Bingo. So, Leonora was killed by the same killer.

“That’s the only one that is unaccounted for. But it fits with the killer’s desire to dress up his victims like the opposite sex and mutilate the genitals to make them genderless, right?”

Henrik Pedersen leaned back in his chair. “I…I don’t think anyone has thought of that.”

“Really? Not even you, Officer Pedersen?”

He shook his head. “No. Now, we’re not supposed to talk about the case with the press, but I’ll drop a word with the investigators about this. I don’t have to let them know where it came from. They need to know the connection.”

He was a good actor.

My eyes dropped to his belt. “So, you found your baton, I see?”

“What? Oh, yeah. That day I didn’t bring it, I’d left it in my car. Silly me.”

“Could I see it?”

He stared at me like I had asked if I could marry his sister.

“It’s just…well, I’ve never held one of those and I really wanted to feel it in my hands. I know it’s a little strange to ask.”

Henrik Pedersen smiled. I could tell he liked me. I used it.

“No. That’s okay.” He pulled out his baton and I held it in my hand.

It was so much heavier than I had imagined. I tried to picture it hitting someone in the head.

“Probably wouldn’t take more than one hit to knock someone out, huh?” I handed it back, and he put it on his belt.

“That’s kind of the idea,” he said.

“Of course it is. Have you ever used yours?” I asked.

“It happens. When you have to separate people in a bar fight, for instance.”

I stared at Officer Pedersen. I was scrutinizing him, trying hard to see if he was just a very good liar. I hated the fact that he seemed so sympathetic. He had, after all, made life a living hell for his ex-girlfriend. But then, he also acted as the homosexuals’ protector in the nightlife. Was he a superhero or a serial killer? I couldn’t decide. He was kind of creepy as well.

“Anything else I can do for you two?” he asked.

I looked at David, and then shook my head. “No, I think we’re done here.”

“Well, give me a call sometime,” he said, and handed me his card.

I stared at the card, then up at him. He blushed.

“Just in case you come up with any new theories that we should take a look at,” he said with a shy smile.

53

I
PICKED
up the kids a little early that afternoon, thinking they deserved it, since I had been late so many times. We had tea in the kitchen with my dad and ate cookies. The mood around the table was low, and I tried to cheer them up by talking about how it would soon be spring, and then we were going to play in the yard again, maybe go out on one of our friend’s boats. But it didn’t seem to help. Besides, we all knew spring was months away, and darkness still reigned outside.

“When do you think my dad will be back?” Tobias asked, looking so sad it almost hurt.

I hated what this was doing to him, to all of them. William was fussing, and I let him down from his chair. “I don’t know, Tobias. I talked to him earlier, and he told me he was looking for a place for the two of you.”

Julie let out a shriek. “What? They’re moving out?”

“We don’t know yet, but yes, that might be the consequence. Sune and I aren’t getting along very well, and think that maybe a little time apart will help things get better.”

Julie’s eyes filled up. “But…But…I love Sune. I love Tobias. I don’t want to live apart. What about William?”

I put a hand on her shoulder to try and calm her down. “Take it easy, now. We’ll figure all those things out. Don’t you worry about any of it. You’ll still get to see Tobias. Maybe you can also go on weekends there when William goes. We’ll figure it out.”

Julie was crying now. “I hate this!” she said, slamming her plate onto the table. “I hate you!”

Then she stormed out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Tobias ran after her. I could hear their angry steps on the stairs.

Damn you, Sune!

I felt my dad’s hand on my shoulder. Now he was trying to comfort me.

“Let her process it. She’s entitled to be angry for a little while. Then, go talk to her. She’ll be fine.”

“I just hate doing this to her again. To them. It’s not fair.”

“It’s not all your fault,” he said. “I must say, I find Sune a little cowardly for not being here when you broke the news.”

“Well, he didn’t know,” I said. “I kind of just blurted it out. We haven’t talked it over yet. We don’t speak at all. He’s shutting me completely out, Dad. He won’t listen to anything I have to say. I had to tell them something, right?”

My dad nodded and put his arm around my shoulder. “He’ll come around. Give him time. Sune is a good guy.”

I sniffled and looked at my dad. What on earth would I ever do without him? Maybe I wasn’t staying in his house because he needed it as much as because I needed him?

My phone vibrated in my pocket and I picked it up. My heart stopped.

“It’s him,” I said.

“Well, pick it up.”

“Hello? Sune?” I said.

“I found a place to stay. We’ll be able to move in next week. I’ll stay here till then, and Tobias can stay with you or come here to live with us. It’s up to you.”

I sighed. My hands started shaking. It was suddenly so real. “So, that’s it, huh? Is it that easy for you to just leave us?”

“You have yourself to thank for that, Rebekka. You kept pushing me out. I can’t be treated like a child for the rest of my life.”

“You’re not even willing to talk it over? We miss you here. I miss you.”

He sighed again. “I miss you too, Rebekka. Goddammit. You don’t make it easy. Hell, I love you, but…”

“I love you too. Isn’t that worth working for? Come home, Sune. Let’s talk instead.” I wanted to say something about Jeppe and tell him the truth about what had happened in William’s bedroom, about how he had sent me those creepy texts…to make Sune understand, but I hesitated. I was so afraid he wouldn’t listen, that he would just get angry again.

“I…I can’t…Not now at least. Now, do you want Tobias to stay with you or not? I know he’d prefer to live with you as long as possible. Besides, Jeppe’s place isn’t exactly suitable for children.”

I hid my face in my hand and started crying. “Sure,” I said through tears. “He can stay as long as he wants.”

54

T
HE MAN
was excited. Everything was going the way he wanted it to. Leonora was gone. Got what she deserved,
the bitch
. The newspapers were filled with pictures of her and packed with questions as to why anyone would kill someone like her.

Such a beautiful young woman with such a promising career ahead of her. What a shame.

He knew the journalist lady was onto him. That Rebekka Franck woman. She was close, but she wouldn’t be able to stop him. Not in time, at least.

“So, what do you say, Alex?” he asked his reflection.

“I’m so proud of you,” his reflection spoke back.

The man smiled. It felt so good. Justice had served the people who had hurt them. He felt his baton on his belt. He liked holding it and took it out. He liked the weight of it. So much power in one little stick.

The power of life and death.

The man looked at the newspaper again, with Leonora’s picture on the front. He had kind of gotten to like seeing his work in the papers. It gave him a sense of satisfaction. Of being someone. He mattered. He had a cause, and the people were going to understand his message. Not yet. Not now. But, one day, they would. When he had finished his work.

The man touched his reflection. A tear left his eye. “I’m sorry, Alex. I’m sorry for everything that happened to you. I’m so sorry!”

He grabbed the newspaper and held it up, so his reflection could see it. “You see? She got what she deserved. They all did.”

The man sobbed, thinking about how unfair it had been, how badly everyone had treated his sister while growing up. He could hear her screaming inside his head, and held his hands to his ears to block it out.

I’m not a girl! I don’t want to be a girl. I want to shave. I want to shoot guns. I want to cut my hair. Why won’t they let me be who I am? Just leave me alone!

He remembered the day when she had dressed up in their father’s suit after school and put her hair up under a hat, just as their father had walked in. Oh, how he remembered it. How their father had grabbed Alex in his arms and thrown her in the bathroom, where he had stripped her down and tied her hands with his belt, then beat the crap out of her with the whip that the pastor had given them. Alex had screamed and cried.

“I’m a boy! I’m a boy!”

Four hours the man had listened to his sister being beaten and screaming. Until she suddenly went quiet and their father came out of the bathroom, all sweating and red in the face. He had caught a glimpse of his sister inside the bathroom, her back striped in blood. The anger he had felt towards his parents at that instant filled him with such hatred he would never look at them the same way he used to again. That night, in their bedroom, while stroking his sister’s hair to make her fall asleep, he swore they would one day pay for what they had done. They had made a pact back then, the two of them. A pact to get out of there, to escape before their parents drove them crazy. Before it was too late. The man had saved his money from being a newspaper boy. He had put it all away in a shoebox. Along with all the birthday money and the money he had saved up from the tooth fairy; they could get by for a little while. It had to work. It simply had to. It was their only chance.

The next day, their parents had taken Alex away and put her in that mental hospital. They told the man his sister was sick. They called it schizophrenia. When she returned, she was never the same. They had destroyed her. Broken her. And all their plans were gone. All their dreams for the future vanished. She wasn’t his sister anymore. The girl who returned was someone else.

The man touched his reflection and cried at the memories.

“I’m so sorry I let them do this to you. I am so, so sorry.”

55

I
COULDN’T SLEEP.
I kept tossing and turning in my bed, being either too hot or too cold. The bed felt so empty without Sune in it. I cried a lot and hit my face on the pillow, while cursing him and begging him to come back at the same time.

He said he loved you. He said he still loved you. Maybe there’s still hope? But, why would he choose to move out if he still loved you? Why would he get a place of his own? I don’t understand what I did wrong.

“Just come back,” I whispered, while staring at the ceiling. It was a full moon outside and one of those freezing crystal clear nights. The light from the moon lit up parts of my bedroom through the curtain.

I looked at my phone one last time around two o’clock, hoping he would have texted me, but he hadn’t. After that, I finally dozed off into an uneasy sleep.

I dreamt of Sune. Of course I dreamt about him. He was all I had on my mind. I dreamt we had taken a trip together. Just the two of us. It looked like Egypt, but we kept saying we were in Germany for some reason. It didn’t look anything like Germany. It looked like the place in Egypt where I had been with Peter and Julie many years ago. But it didn’t matter. What mattered was us. It was just us. There was no one else in the resort, or even in the world. The ocean was crystal clear and very blue. We went snorkeling. Sune was laughing. I was laughing. We were swimming in the pool, drinking in the bar, and dancing while walking back to our hotel room. We were hanging out on the balcony, drinking champagne and only having eyes for one another. At night, we made passionate love in the bedroom. My longing to feel him close to me was so real.