Broken Angels (29 page)

“When I was small, StoryBook River was already on hard times, you see,” he said. “There were all these other places, big noisy ugly places where families went instead. It was bad for my grandmother.” He tightened the rope. “She was a hard woman, but she loved me.” He gestured to Nicci Malone. “This was her mother’s dress.”

“It’s lovely.”
A shadow by the window.
“When I went to the bad place, after the swans, my grandmother

came to see me every weekend. She took the train.”
“You mean the swans in Fairmount Park? In 1995?”
“Yes.”
Jessica saw the outline of a shoulder in the window. Josh was there. Moon placed a few more dead flowers in the coffin, gently arranging them. “My grandmother died, you know.”

“I read it in the paper. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
“The tin soldier was close,” he said. “He was
very
close.” In addition to the river killings, the man standing in front of her had

burned Walt Brigham to death. Jessica flashed on the immolated corpse in the park.

“He was smart,” Moon added. “He would have stopped the story before it was over.”
“What about Roland Hannah?” Jessica asked.
Moon raised his eyes slowly to meet hers. His gaze seemed to bore right through her. “The Snow Man? There is much about him you do not know.”
Jessica moved further to her left, drawing Moon’s eyes from Josh. Josh was now fewer than five linear feet from where Nicci was. If Jessica could just get the man to drop the rope for a second...
“I believe people will come back here,” Jessica said.
“Do you think so?” He reached over, started the record again. The sound of the steam whistles once more filled the room.
“Absolutely,” she said. “People are curious.”
Moon went distant again. “I didn’t know my great-grandfather. But he was a seafaring man. One time, my grandfather told me a story about him, about how, as a young man, he was out at sea and saw a mermaid. I knew it wasn’t true. I’d read it in a book. He also told me that he helped the Danish people build a place called Solvang in California. Do you know that place?”
Jessica had never heard of it. “No.”
“It’s a genuine Danish village. I’d like to go there someday.”
“Maybe you will.” Another step to the left. Moon looked up quickly.
“Where are you going, tin soldier?”
Jessica stole a glance at the window. Josh had a large rock in his hands.
“Nowhere,” she answered.
Jessica could see Moon’s expression shift from affable host to utter madness and rage. He pulled the rope taut. The mechanism of the crossbow groaned above Nicci Malone’s prone body.
Byrne sighted down his pistol. Inside the candlelit room, the man onstage stood behind a coffin. A coffin with Nicci Malone in it. A large crossbow aimed a steel arrow at her heart.
The man was Will Pedersen. He had a white flower in his lapel.
The white flower,
Natalya Jakos had said.
Take the shot
.
Seconds earlier Byrne and Vincent had approached the front of the schoolhouse. Jessica was inside, trying to negotiate with the lunatic on the stage. She was working her way to the left.
Did she know that Byrne and Vincent were there? Was she maneuvering out of the way to give them a clear shot?
Byrne raised the barrel of his weapon slightly, allowing for the distortion of the path of the bullet as it passed through the glass. He wasn’t sure how the slug would be affected. He sighted down the barrel.
He saw Anton Krotz.
The white flower.
He saw the knife at Laura Clarke’s throat.

Take the shot.

Byrne saw the man lift his arms, the rope. He was going to trigger the crossbow mechanism.
Byrne couldn’t wait. Not this time.
He fired.
Marius Damgaard pulled the rope as a gunshot thundered through the room. At the same instant, Josh Bontrager slammed the rock through the window, smashing the pane into a shower of crystalline glass. Damgaard staggered back, blood now blossoming on his crisp white shirt. Bontrager gained his footing on the icy shards, then lunged across the room, onto the stage, toward the coffin. Damgaard reeled, fell backward, his full weight on the rope. The crossbow mechanism triggered as Damgaard disappeared through the shattered window, leaving a slick scarlet trail on the floor, the wall, the windowsill.
As the steel arrow launched, Josh Bontrager reached Nicci Malone. The projectile slammed into his right thigh, passing through it and into Nicci’s flesh. Bontrager shrieked in agony as a great burst of his blood shot across the room.
A moment later, the front door crashed in.
Jessica dove for her weapon, rolled on the floor, aimed. Somehow Kevin Byrne and Vincent were standing in front of her. She scrambled to her feet.
The three detectives dashed over to the stage. Nicci was still alive. The arrowhead had cut into her right shoulder, but the wound did not look serious. Josh’s injury looked far worse. The razor sharp arrow had sliced deeply into his leg. It may have hit an artery.
Byrne tore off his coat, his shirt. He and Vincent lifted Bontrager, tied a tight tourniquet around his upper leg. Bontrager screamed in pain.
Vincent turned to his wife, held her. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” Jessica said. “Josh called for backup. The sheriff ’s office is on the way.”
Byrne looked through the shattered window. A dry canal ran behind the building. Damgaard was gone.
“I’ve got this.” Jessica applied pressure to Josh Bontrager’s wound. “Go after him,” she said.
“Are you sure?” Vincent asked.
“I’m sure.
Go.
”
Byrne slipped his coat back on. Vincent grabbed his shotgun.
They ran out the door into the black night.

Moon is bleeding. He makes his way to the entrance to StoryBook River, winding his way through the darkness. He cannot see very well, but he knows every turn of the canals, every stone, every display. His breathing is wet and labored, his pace is slow.

He stops for a moment, reaches into his pocket, retrieves his matches. He remembers the story of the little match seller. Barefoot, and with no coat, she found herself alone on New Year’s Eve. It was very cold. As the evening grew late, the little girl struck match after match for warmth.

In each flare she saw a vision.
Moon lights a match. In the flame he envisions the beautiful swans, shimmering in the springtime sun. He strikes another. This time he sees Thumbelina, her tiny form on the lily pad. The third match is the nightingale. He remembers her song. The next is Karen, graceful in her red shoes. Then Anne Lisbeth. Match after match glows brightly in the night. Moon sees each face, recalls each story.
He has just a few matches left.
Perhaps, like the little match seller, he will light them all at once. When the girl in the story did that, her grandmother came down and lifted her to heaven.
Moon hears a sound, turns. There is a man standing by the bank of the main canal, just a few feet away. He is not a big man, but he is broad-shouldered, strong looking. He throws a length of rope over the crossbeam of the huge trellis spanning the
Østtunnelen
canal.
Moon knows the story is ending.
He strikes the matches, begins to recite.
“Here are maidens, young and fair.”
One by one the match heads ignite.
“Dancing in the summer air.”
A warm radiance fills the world.
“Like two spinning wheels at play.”
Moon drops the matches to the ground. The man steps forward, ties Moon’s hands behind him. Moments later Moon feels the soft rope coil around his neck, sees the gleaming knife in the man’s hand.
“Pretty maidens dance away.”
Moon is swept from his feet, high into the air, moving skyward, heavenward. Below him he sees the beaming faces of the swans, of Anne Lisbeth, of Thumbelina, of Karen, of all the others. He sees the canals, the displays, the wonder that is StoryBook River.
The man disappears into the forest.
On the ground the matchlight flares brightly, burns for a moment, then grows dim.
For Moon, there is now only darkness.

Byrne and Vincent searched the grounds directly adjacent to the schoolhouse, flashlights held over weapons, finding nothing. The tracks leading around the north side of the structure had been Josh Bontrager’s. They dead-ended at the window.

They walked along the banks of the narrow canals that snaked through the trees, their Maglites cutting thin beams through the utter gloom of the night.

After the second turn of the canal they saw the footprints. And blood. Byrne caught Vincent’s eye. They would search on separate sides of the six-foot-wide channel.

Vincent crossed the arching footbridge, Byrne stayed on the near side. They hunted through the turning tributaries of the canals. They came upon the decayed displays, all decorated with fading signs:

the little mermaid. the flying trunk. the story of the wind. the old streetlamp. Real skeletons sat on the displays. Rotting clothes swaddled the figures.

Minutes later, they came to the end of the canals. Damgaard was nowhere in sight. The trellis that spanned the main canal near the entrance was fifty feet away. Beyond that, the world. Damgaard was gone.

“Don’t move,” came a voice directly behind them.
Byrne heard the rack of a shotgun.
“Put the weapons down nice and slow.”
“We’re Philly PD,” Vincent said.
“I’m not in the habit of repeating myself, young man. Put the weapons

on the ground
now.
”

Byrne understood. It was the Berks County sheriff ’s department. He glanced to his right. Deputies moved through the trees, their flashlights slicing the darkness. Byrne wanted to protest—every second they delayed was one more second Marius Damgaard had to get away—but they had no choice. Byrne and Vincent complied. They put their weapons on the ground, then their hands on their heads, interlaced their fingers.

“One at a time,” came the voice. “Slowly. Let’s see some ID.” Byrne reached into his coat, produced his badge. Vincent followed suit. “Okay,” the man said.
Byrne and Vincent spun around, retrieved their weapons. Behind

them stood Sheriff Jacob Toomey and a pair of younger deputies. Jake Toomey was a grizzled fifty, thick neck, country crew cut. His deputies were both 180 pounds of deep-fried adrenaline. Serial killers didn’t come to this part of the world that often.

Moments later a county EMS crew ran past, heading to the schoolhouse.
“This all has to do with the Damgaard boy?” Toomey asked.
Byrne laid out the evidence quickly and succinctly.
Toomey looked out over the theme park, then at the ground.
“Shit.”
“Sheriff Toomey.” A call came from the other side of the canals, near the park’s entrance. The group of men followed the voice, reaching the mouth of the canal. Then they saw it.
A body swung from the center bar of the trellis that spanned the entrance. Above the body, was the once festive legend:

S ORY OOK RIV R

Half a dozen flashlights illuminated Marius Damgaard’s corpse. His hands were tied behind his back. His feet were just a few feet over the water. He was hanging by a blue and white rope. Byrne also saw a pair of footprints leading off into the forest. Sheriff Toomey dispatched a pair of deputies to follow. Shotguns in their hands, they disappeared into the woods.

Marius Damgaard was dead. When Byrne and the others trained their flashlights on the body, they also saw that he had not only been hanged, he had been gutted. A long gaping wound ran from throat to stomach. Entrails dangled, steaming in the frigid night air.

Minutes later, the two deputies returned empty-handed. They met their boss’s stare, shook their heads. Whoever had been here, at the site of Marius Damgaard’s execution, was gone.

Byrne looked at Vincent Balzano. Vincent turned on his heels and ran back to the schoolhouse.
It was over. Except for the steady dripping from Marius Damgaard’s mutilated corpse.
The sound of blood becoming the river.

98

Two days after the uncovering of the horrors in Odense, Pennsylvania, the media had all but set up permanent residence in the small rural community. This was international news. Berks County was not ready for the unwanted attention.

Josh Bontrager endured six hours of surgery. He was in stable condition at the Reading Hospital and Medical Center. Nicci Malone had been treated and released.

The initial FBI reports indicated that Marius Damgaard had murdered at least nine people. No forensic evidence had yet been found that tied him directly to the murders of Annemarie DiCillo and Charlotte Waite.

Damgaard had been committed to a mental-health facility in upstate New York for nearly eight years, from the ages of eleven to nineteen. He was released after his grandmother had been taken ill. Within weeks after Elise Damgaard died, his killings resumed.

A thorough search of the house and grounds turned up a number of gruesome finds. Not the least of which was that Marius Damgaard had kept a vial of his grandfather’s blood beneath his bed. DNA tests matched it to the “moon” drawings on the victims. The semen belonged to Marius Damgaard himself.

Damgaard had masqueraded as Will Pedersen, and also as a young man named Sean at Roland Hannah’s ministry. He had been counseled at the county mental-health facility where Lisette Simon worked. He had visited TrueSew many times, choosing Sa’mantha Fanning as his ideal Anne Lisbeth.

When Marius Damgaard learned that the StoryBook River property— a thousand-acre area Frederik Damgaard had incorporated as a township called Odense in the 1930s—had been condemned and seized for back taxes, and that it was scheduled for demolition, he felt his universe began to crumble. He decided to lead the world back to his beloved StoryBook River, making a trail of death and horror as directions.

on january 3, Jessica and Byrne stood near the mouth of the canals that snaked though the theme park. The sun was out; the day portended a false spring. In daylight, it looked drastically different. Despite the rotting timbers and crumbling stonework, Jessica could see how it had once been a place where families had come to enjoy its unique atmosphere. She had seen vintage brochures. It was somewhere she might have brought her daughter.

Now it was a freak show, a place of death that would draw people from all over the world. Perhaps Marius Damgaard would get his wish. The entire complex was a crime scene, and would remain so for a long time to come.

Were there other bodies to be found? Other horrors to discover? Time would tell.
They had sorted through the hundreds of papers and files—city, state,

county, and now federal. One witness statement stuck out for both Jessica and Byrne, a statement unlikely ever to be fully understood. A resident of Pine Tree Lane, one of the access roads leading to the entrance to StoryBook River, had seen a vehicle that night, an idling vehicle just on

388
RICHARD Montanari

the shoulder of the road. Jessica and Byrne had visited the spot. It was less than a hundred yards from the trellis where Marius Damgaard had been found hanging and eviscerated. The FBI had taken footwear impressions leading to and from the entrance. The footprints were made by a very popular brand of men’s rubber overshoe, available everywhere.

The witness said the idling vehicle was an expensive looking green SUV with yellow fog lamps and extensive detailing.
The witness did not get a license plate.

outside the movie
Witness,
Jessica had never seen so many Amish people in her life. It seemed that the entire Amish population of Berks County had come to Reading. They milled about the lobby of the hospital. The older folks brooded, prayed, observed, shooed the children away from the candy and soda vending machines.

When Jessica introduced herself, they all shook her hand. It seemed that Josh Bontrager had come by it honestly.

“you saved my life,” Nicci said.

Jessica and Nicci Malone stood at the foot of Josh Bontrager’s hospital bed. His room was filled with flowers.
The razor-sharp arrow had slashed Nicci’s right shoulder. Her arm was in a sling. The doctors said she would be IOD—injured on duty— for about a month.
Bontrager smiled. “All in a day,” he said.
His color had returned; his smile had never left. He sat up in bed, surrounded by about a hundred different cheeses, breads, jars of preserves, and sausages, all wrapped in wax paper. Homemade get-well cards abounded.
“When you get better, I’m buying you the best dinner in Philly,” Nicci said.
Bontrager stroked his chin, apparently considering his options.
“Le Bec Fin?”
“Yeah. Okay.
Le Bec Fin.
You’re on,” Nicci said.
Jessica knew that
Le Bec
would set Nicci back a few hundred. Small price to pay.
“But you better be careful,” Bontrager added.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you know what they say.”
“No, I don’t,” Nicci said. “What
do
they say, Josh?”
Bontrager winked at her and Jessica. “Once you go Amish, you never go back.”