One, Two ... He Is Coming for You (4 page)

Ah, a free spirit from Christiania. Also known as “fristaden,” the
free-state. It was an area in Copenhagen that had around a thousand inhabitants.
They lived by what they liked to call a collectivistic anarchy. Some called it
a socialist anarchy. It meant that everybody living there got to take part in
all the decisions. To the Christianites, as they called themselves, it meant
they were different from the rest of the society and that they lived by their
own rules. To the rest of the world it meant that this was a place you could go
and buy pot on the streets of Christiania where they sold it out in the open
even if it was illegal in the rest of the country. They were a state within the
state that the police didn’t touch. They even had their own flag, red with
three yellow dots. Today things had changed though. The liberal government had
sent in the police and tried to fight the illegal drug trade, and they wanted
to remove all the houses that the Christianites had build themselves.

My guess was that Sune wasn’t too thrilled about the police in general.
I guessed right.

I kept a close eye on the activities behind the crime-scene tape and soon I
spotted the detective who seemed to be in charge. He came out of the house and
headed towards one of the police cars, and I yelled at him.

“Excuse me. Rebekka Franck, reporter at
Zeeland Times
.”

He stopped and stared at me. He then approached.

“Rebekka Franck?”

“Yes.”

Surprisingly he smiled at me.

“You don’t remember me?”

I really didn’t but wouldn’t disappoint him. Besides, I really needed
his comment for my article.

“Well, of course I do,” I lied.

“Michael Oestergaard. You used to take dancing lessons at my aunt’s
dance studio. Jazz ballet.”

“Miss Lejrskov’s class. Michael. Oh yes, I do remember.”

I really still didn’t, but I remembered my dance teacher. Michael looked
to be at least eight or nine years older than me. How could I have remembered
him?

“Exactly. I used to hang out there with my brother and look at all the
pretty girls. So you are a big-shot reporter now? I must admit I have been
following your career. It has brought you around the world?”

“Sort of.”

“And now it has brought you to Karrebaeksminde. I heard from the old
Miss Jensen in the tourist-information-desk down on Gl. Brovej that you had
come back.”

“And she was right.”

That woman did a little more than informing the tourists around here.

“So you work for the newspaper down here now?”

“Yes, I do.”

“And you probably want a comment for your article?”

“I would love that.” I was stunned. I couldn’t believe his courtesy.
Normally I wouldn’t get a single word out of the police until they had a press
conference, and then I would only get what all the other reporters got.

“Well, I can’t say much.” He lowered his voice and got closer. “But it
ain’t pretty, I can tell you that.”

“But what can you tell me about what happened here. Is it a murder?”

“No doubt about it. Someone broke in through the back door and killed
the guy.”

“Do you have any suspects?”

“No, but we might begin with his wife,” he laughed. “He wasn’t exactly
known as one of God’s better children, if you know what I mean.”

“I don’t, I’m sorry. So you will be questioning the wife in the near
future?”

“Sure, but don’t write that. That would be interfering with
investigative information. You know that.”

“Then please just tell me what I can write.”

“Write that the victim has been identified as Didrik Rosenfeldt, CEO and
owner of the world-known company Seabas Windmills, and known as a part of the
famous and very wealthy Rosenfeldt family. He apparently was killed by an
intruder in his summer residence, there is an ongoing investigation, and that …
is it, I think.”

I wrote everything he said in my notebook.

“Why hasn’t the body been removed from the house yet?” I asked.

The detective sighed deeply.

”I really can’t get into that.”

Sune had probably been right.

“How did he die?”

The detective got an occupied look on his face.

“We don’t know yet. That’s for the crime lab to figure out. I am sorry
but I really have to get on with my job …”

“But surely you must have an idea?”

“We do, but we won’t share it with the public, yet.”

I nodded. That’s what I expected. The crime scene must have been messy
just as Sune said. I spotted Sune out of the corner of my eye. He took pictures
of the body as it was finally removed from the house in a body bag and
transported in an ambulance.

“Who found the body?” I asked Detective Oestergaard.

”The housekeeper found him this morning, when she came to clean the
house.”

“At what time?”

”She called us at six.”

“Can we talk to her?”

“Well, I guess I can ask her.”

I had to pinch my arm. I’d never met this kind of cooperation from the
police. Were they always like this or was it because he knew me? Anyway, he
left me for a second and came back with a small Philippine woman with an empty
look in her eyes and an expression like she had seen the devil himself and
lived to tell about it. It seemed she was still in shock and I knew I had to be
careful.

I greeted her with a handshake and introduced myself. The detective left
us, his duty calling. I waved at Sune and signaled I wanted him to come and
take her picture. He came right away.

“So, that must have been real horrible for you,” I began.

“I … I just walked in, like I normally do. Normally he isn’t in the
house. I didn’t expect … I mean, how could I know?”

“Of course you didn’t know. Can you tell me a little about what you
saw?”

She didn’t look at me but stared into open air.

“He was dead. Blood everywhere. On all the floors in the living room.
All over the parquet. It was like a slaughterhouse. He was shredded to pieces.
Ripped apart like an animal would kill its prey. No man could have done this.
Only a demon.”

6

“Did you write this article about my father?”

The chubby redhead man in front of me looked like his father back in the
days when I used to see him down at the port hanging out and drinking with his
boarding school buddies.

He had been waiting for me at the entrance when I arrived at the
newspaper the very next morning. He held the paper with a picture of Didrik
Rosenfeldt on the front page.

“Yes, I did.” I opened the door into the editorial room.

Didrik Rosenfeldt Jr. followed me all the way to my desk.

“Can I help you, sir?” Sara said as she came out of the kitchen bearing
a cup of coffee and a piece of cake on a plate.

“I want an apology from the newspaper. A formal one.”

I looked at him. “For what?”

“For publishing this,” he said and pointed at the interview with the
housekeeper. “This line, where she says that a demon killed my father. Giving
all kinds of details that the public shouldn’t know about. I don’t want you to
write any more about this case. Do you understand?”

Sara placed a cup of coffee in front of me, and I took it.

“Did you want one too?” I asked.

He snorted and pointed at me with shaky finger.

“Do you know who I am, and what my family is capable of?”

“I think I might have an idea.”

“I warn you …”

“Or what?”

”Or …”

I put down my coffee cup and leaned toward him. I wasn’t afraid of
anybody, least of all of him.

”Listen. You don’t scare me one bit, mister. I have faced a lot worse
bastards in my time in Iraq. And by the way, last time I checked we have
freedom of speech in this country. Besides, they were the housekeeper’s words,
not mine. I just printed them. That is not illegal. So just fuck off.”

I hadn’t noticed Sune who had come in the room. Now I saw him smiling
for the first time.

Didrik Rosenfeldt Jr. snorted again, very loudly this time, but soon
realized that he was defeated. Blushing he turned around and walked quickly
towards the door. Before he left he turned around and looked at me.

“This is not the last word in this case.” He disappeared out of the
room. I shook my head and sat down starting my computer.

“What a prick. Just like his father,” I mumbled.

The two others in the room kept staring at me. Sara sat down and Sune
started clapping.

“Way to go, Rebekka.”

“It was nothing.”

“Nothing? You just told the owner of the newspaper to fuck off.”

I looked up. “He’s the owner of the newspaper?”

“Well not directly. But his family owns the corporation that owns the
newspaper.”

I felt my body getting heavier in the seat. “So he could have me fired
for doing that?”

Sune sat down at the corner of my table. ”He probably wouldn’t, I
guess.”

Sune looked at Sara.

“You’ll be just fine,” she said, not too reassuringly.

Moving through the day, I wanted to write a follow-up article about the murder.
I couldn’t stop wondering about the case. And I didn’t want to. Now that I had
risked my job and was probably going to get fired anyway, it didn’t matter if I
upset Didrik Rosenfeldt’s son any more. I wanted to figure this case out.

A man like Didrik Rosenfeldt probably had a lot of enemies who wanted
him dead. It could be for financial reasons. He was good for over $6.2 billion.
That was 6.2 billion reasons to kill him right there. But he was also about to
fire three thousand people in his company. That could have ticked someone off.
He also had an investment company that may have made a bad investment for
someone. Maybe he cheated someone for a lot of money.

And then there was the wife angle. He was known around town to be having
affairs with a lot of women and bringing them to the summer residence. Maybe
his wife simply had enough and she wanted him to suffer, to die a merciless
death as revenge for humiliating her.

It had been seen before, but mostly in foreign countries. Denmark was a
small country with only 5.5 million inhabitants. We didn’t have that many
killings or even that much crime compared with many other European countries.
And almost every murder case was solved. Ninety-six percent of the cases to be
exact according to the police department’s own records.

I was very intrigued—and somewhat disgusted—by what the
housekeeper said about the crime-scene and how the body looked when she
arrived, and I wanted to know more. Maybe there was something in the way he
died or in the way they found him that could tell me what kind of killer we were
talking about. Could it have been a sex game that went wrong?

I picked up the phone and called my detective dance school friend at the
police station, who was thrilled to hear from me, but he was of no help. They
still hadn’t gotten the autopsy report yet, so they didn’t know exactly what
had killed him.

Surprisingly, he ended the conversation by asking me out.

“Like a date?” I asked loudly.

Apparently it was so loud that Sara looked surprised at me with her
headphones on. I smiled and pretended it was nothing, so Sara wouldn’t spread
the word. She was information central around here. No doubt about that. And I
had to be very careful what I let her know about me if I didn’t want the rest
of the town to know it a few minutes later.

“I’m sorry, Michael. But I just got away from a bad marriage, and I need
time to get back on my legs. And my daughter needs stability for now. But
thanks. I’m flattered that you would ask.” I tried to let him down politely.

“But maybe another time then?” He sounded so disappointed. I never liked
rejecting someone.

“Maybe. Let’s wait and see.” I said goodbye and put the phone down.

So they didn’t even know what killed the guy yet. Nothing new to put in
the paper then.

I was beginning to get irritated and frustrated when I suddenly thought
about my sister in Naestved. She used to date the Didrik and she and her
friends hung out with him. I remembered how they hated him for not treating
women well. My sister especially seemed to be angry with him after she dumped
him. And it was more than just a normal hurt and anger after a breakup. She
loathed him. Detested everything about him and his friends. Maybe I could make
a sort of portrait of him.

I called headquarters and they loved the idea. So they hadn’t spoken to
Junior yet. Fine by me. I would continue. Go out with a bang. Didrik Rosenfeldt
was a respected business man and well known in the jet-set society; he came
from a noble family one of the few left. He was one step from royalty.

But he was also a prick, and I was going to tell the world the truth
about him.

7

Henrik Holch gave his credit card to the caterer. He had brought in the
staff of the world famous Noma restaurant to cater the party. Everyone knew
they had just won the world’s best restaurant award last year. It had cost him
a small fortune, but since he had a big one he hardly blinked when they gave
him the bill.

“Just charge it to this card.”

Long after they all were gone he could still taste the oysters and
reindeer tongue with Jerusalem artichoke and marjoram along with the 2007
Chataeuneuf-Du-Pape “Les Vielles Vignes” from Domaine de Villeneuve Rhone-sud.

As always, his party had been a huge success. Now he needed some time
alone, doing what he liked to do.

He crossed the living room with remains of the party everywhere. His
housekeeper would take care of that in the morning, before his kids came for
the weekend. Not that he particularly enjoyed their company. They had
become  annoying over the years, just like their mother. He laughed to
himself, as he opened a bottle of whiskey and poured himself a large glass.