Call Me Princess (17 page)

Louise went to retrieve her purse and jacket from the victim’s kitchen. The realtor thing didn’t surprise her, because there was quite a bit of truth to the notion that you can learn a lot about a person by looking at their stuff. An air of quality pervaded Christina’s apartment, which gave the impression of a tenant who knew quite a bit about interior decorating. That would make sense for a realtor.

Louise peeked in on the two CSI guys, who were both leaning over the drainpipe under the sink.

“Good luck, guys. See you later,” she said and waved.

“Yup,” Frandsen said, giving them a farewell salute with two fingers to his temple as she and Lars left.

“I
COULD TELL THIS GUY WAS DIFFERENT FROM THE OTHERS.
Christina didn’t talk about anything else after her first date with him.”

Marianne With was sitting on the very edge of her chair. Christina Lerche’s friend had twisted up her dark her and secured it to the top of her head with a clip. She had a nice complexion and wasn’t wearing any makeup. She was thirty-three, just like Christina, and they had worked together for four years.

“She really enjoyed herself. She was a happy person. I envied her that.”

Marianne seemed to slump, staring off into space and receding into her own thoughts before she continued. “But she was also the kind of person you could easily think was sort of overdoing it. She was totally obsessed with online dating. She had profiles on God knows how many different dating sites, and she never made any secret of it. She sometimes went out with several guys in the same week, although she rarely went on more than one or two dates with the same guy. It was as though that first meeting was the only part that interested her. After that she’d toss them aside, discard them, and the next day she’d be at it again with someone new.”

Louise observed the dark-haired woman as she spoke. There was no doubt that Marianne did not approve of her friend’s behavior, but at the same time Louise detected a touch of envy in her voice. Christina’s behavior, at least the way Marianne was describing it, was not unusual, though. A little while back, the division had held a Friday continuing-education meeting where a Swedish lifestyle researcher gave a talk about the increasing number of people who were becoming addicted to online dating.

“But it wasn’t like that with
this
guy,” Marianne continued.

The vaguely disapproving tone was gone from her voice. Now she just sounded sincere, and sad.

“I think he charmed her with his chivalry. The way she told it, she made it sound almost like some heroic deed that he had walked her back to the subway.”

Marianne slumped again. She sat staring at the floor before straightening up and saying, “Sometimes I thought she deserved a good slap on the wrist.”

Her voice started sounding choked up, and Louise braced herself for a bout of sobbing.

“She would get all irritated whenever a bouquet of flowers would show up at the office from one of her rejects,” Marianne continued, her voice not breaking after all. “She lost interest so fast that the guys totally didn’t get that the relationship was over.” She paused briefly. “I really shouldn’t be talking about her like this,” she sniffled.

“What day did they see each other?” Louise asked, all her senses heightened, ignoring the witness’s self-reproach. Her question was so abrupt that Marianne looked at Louise in confusion.

“What do you mean?”

“Tell me when Christina went out with him,” Louise explained. “Where did they go, and when did he walk her back to the subway?”

“It must have been Monday or Tuesday.”

“Do you mean only three or four days went by between when they met for the first time and when he murdered her?”

Louise was champing at the bit, but trying not to push Marianne too hard so she wouldn’t freeze up.

“It felt like more time had passed,” Marianne said, “but it must have all happened the same week. We were at a training seminar the week before that. And they hadn’t met each other yet then. But she did say she’d been e-mailing a guy who sounded interesting. I’m quite sure now that it was Monday. They were supposed to get together after work in front of those quaint old pubs along the quay in Nyhavn.”

“Did they go out to eat?” Louise urged. “Or did they see a movie?” Louise searched her memory, trying to think of other things people might do on a first date.

“Uh-uh,” Marianne said. “That was one of the things Christina thought was so great about him. They just went somewhere and talked, and it seemed like she was impressed to meet a guy who was both well-read and gentlemanly at the same time. She told me about how they had chatted for a couple hours before he politely asked if he could take her out to dinner on Friday. After she said yes, that was when he walked her back to the subway.”

“So that was late afternoon or early evening?” Louise prodded.

Marianne nodded.

Louise wrapped up the interview, saying good-bye and thanking her for coming. Then she popped into Heilmann’s office.

“We have to review the subway’s security footage,” Louise said before she was even seated in the chair opposite Heilmann’s desk. Then she plopped down and gave Heilmann a quick summary of the interview with Christina’s friend.

“We’ll start by watching what the CCTV cameras recorded on the platforms at the Kongens Nytorv station, and then if they don’t show up there we can always try the cameras from the escalators leading down to the platforms.”

“Hell, yeah!” Heilmann interjected. She didn’t use words like that often, but she had been a little less formal ever since she’d returned from her leave of absence.

“First thing tomorrow morning, we’ll have to ask them to save all the subway CCTV surveillance footage for us,” Louise continued excitedly. “They keep the recordings for a week, and after that I think they record over them.”

Heilmann nodded.

“I’ll call the subway security office first thing in the morning.”

Louise smiled and sank back in her chair.

“Now we’ll get him,” she said and starting humming to herself.

“Lieutenant Suhr just went home to spend Sunday evening with his family,” Heilmann said. “But he prepped a press release for us to go public with tomorrow morning. We’re asking for witnesses who had contact with a man matching the description of our suspect. And women who experienced the same type of assault but didn’t report it. We’re also warning people about him. It’s just too dangerous not to.”

“If we find him on the surveillance tapes, we can put out an APB for him with a picture as early as Tuesday,” Louise said. “Actually, I could head over there right now. But do you think anyone would be there at this hour on a Sunday to pull the surveillance footage for me?”

They agreed that it made the most sense to review the tapes on-site, using whatever equipment the subway security folks used for that purpose. Otherwise, standard procedure was to copy the surveillance footage to DVDs that they could bring back to police headquarters and review there, but the transfer reduced the image quality.

Heilmann looked at her watch. It was almost seven.

“I doubt it. It’ll have to be the very first thing we do in the morning. You and Jørgensen can make an appointment with Metro Security right after the morning briefing.”

Louise went to find her partner. He was sitting with Toft, still working on Christina’s computer.

“We’re not going to get anywhere else with this until CCU looks at it,” Toft said. “We can tell that they were e-mailing each other for about fourteen days, but we need to trace the e-mails he sent her. Our application turns up a number of different ISPs, but we’re not getting anywhere beyond that. Besides, we’ll have to get a warrant before the four service providers will turn over the details on the IP addresses to us. That’ll take a couple of days.”

Toft sounded discouraged.

Louise smiled and patted him on the shoulder.

“Then it’s a good thing we’ve got another way to track this guy down.”

Toft pushed his reading glasses on top of his head and pulled his eyes away from the computer screen. He could already tell from the tone of her voice that she had something new.

“What’s up?” Toft asked. Lars didn’t react. He kept on scanning through the printouts of the e-mails that Christina and Jesper Bjergholdt had exchanged, and Louise figured he assumed she was referring to the condom they had found at the apartment.

“Tomorrow we’re going to go pick up a picture of him,” she told Lars. “And you’re coming with me.”

“‘Pick up’?” Lars and Toft exclaimed in unison.

“The same day our guy had dinner with Susanne Hansson in Tivoli, he also spent the afternoon with Christina Lerche drinking beer in Nyhavn. And then—wait for it—he walked her back to catch the subway at the Kongens Nytorv station and invited her to go out on Friday. We’re going to look through the station’s surveillance footage for Monday between 5 and 7
P.M
. Her friend can’t remember what time this all happened, but we know when he was in Tivoli having dinner with Susanne, so it was probably sometime just before that.”

Both men sat listening attentively to what she was saying.

“It will be interesting to see whether he knew how to evade the cameras. It’s actually not that easy to do,” Toft said, who was the person in the division with the most camera surveillance experience.

“Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Louise said, interrupting him in her sunniest voice. “He’s not untouchable; he showed us that in his last attack when he lost control, leaving his fingerprints on the wall and later being stupid enough to flush his used condom down the toilet. He
thinks
he’s in control, but he slips up now and then.”

They nodded, and she continued: “Now at least we’ve got a lead.”

Before heading back to her office to straighten up after her interview with Marianne With, Louise told Lars and Toft that she was on her way home, so if there was anything else that they needed from her, they should say so now.

“No, I think we’re all set,” Toft said. “We’re going to drop off the computer now, and then we’ll have to wait and see what the experts can get out of it.” She waved good-bye and hoped they had a good rest of their Sunday evening.

“Hello,” Louise called, opening her front door. She heard voices, and a moment later Markus came running in and gave her a hug. Camilla and Peter were sitting in the kitchen sharing a bottle of red wine. Their empty plates had already been cleared and were sitting on the counter, along with a pan. A large unwashed skillet was soaking in the sink.

“Well, bon appétit!” Louise mumbled under her breath. She quickly glanced around at the mess and suddenly felt tired. She went to the bathroom to freshen up a little. The autopsy, crime-scene inspection, and witness interview had all taken their toll.

“Have you eaten?” Peter called from the kitchen.

She had grabbed a piece of crispbread out of her desk drawer before Christina Lerche’s friend arrived, but otherwise she hadn’t had any real food since leaving her parents’ house that morning.

“Nope. Is there anything left?”

She walked over and peered down into the pan. In the bottom were a couple of uneaten boiled new potatoes. She grabbed a couple of slices of rye bread, buttered them heavily, cut the potatoes into slices, and seasoned everything with sea salt.

“Wine?” Peter offered. He was having a hard time hiding his irritation at their weekend having been cut short, but he was making an honest effort.

Louise shook her head to say “no, thanks” and stepped out onto the landing of the back stairs to grab one of the lukewarm cans of beer they kept out there. Only after she opened it did she realize that Camilla had been watching her without saying anything. She hadn’t even stood up to give her a hug hello. It gave her the creepy feeling that they had been sitting there talking about her and that maybe Peter was venting. She really just wanted to take her food into the living room and plop down in front of the TV, but that would not go over well and would probably be a little too antisocial, she thought.

With a forced smile, she took her beer and plate over to the round kitchen table and joined them. They had lit candles, and the bottle of wine was almost empty.
They’ve been sitting here for a while
, she thought. Markus was glued to Peter’s PlayStation in the bedroom, so they only heard the occasional cheer of triumph from him.

“Is something wrong?” Louise asked Camilla, wondering why she was being so quiet. “Did you have a good weekend?”

Finally her friend smiled.

“I had a really great weekend—thank you for watching Markus,” Camilla said.

“Oh stop, I wasn’t fishing for a thank-you,” Louise said. “You know how we love having him. So... pray tell. Who is he?”

Camilla blushed a little, which Louise noticed immediately. Camilla didn’t do that often.

“So, what kind of guy is he?” Louise said, trying to prod her along.

Peter stood up and started loading the dishes into the machine.

“His name is Henning—” Camilla started.

“Henning?” For the second time that day, Louise had spoken before she could stop herself. It was just such a dweeby name, she thought, and hastened to ask whether he had a last name as well.

“Yes, Henning Zachariassen. He’s got a daughter about Markus’s age who spends weekends with him.”

“Where did you meet him? Where does he live?” Louise asked.

“Okay, okay, easy now!” Camilla protested.

Peter turned toward them and explained. “Camilla’s been politely waiting for you to come home before giving us the scoop, so give her a chance.”

“All right, all right! Start from the beginning, then. I want to hear all the details... well, except for, you know, the
intimate
details,” Louise added quickly.

“I only just met him,” Camilla said.

The smile that Louise had put on to encourage her friend to start talking stuck, turning into a scowl she had trouble concealing. She gave up on taking another bite of her food, and instead set her fork down onto her plate.

“Does he have dark hair?” she asked, suddenly serious.