Itsy Bitsy Spider (Emma Frost #1) (4 page)

I decided to put
our fight behind me and started unpacking the boxes I had managed to carry in
last night. As soon as I was done with those I walked back to the car to get
the rest. I opened the back and carried them out one by one when I suddenly
stopped. The police car was still parked in the street further down the road
and now the entrance had been blocked off with police tape. But that wasn't
what struck me even if four hours or so had passed by. No what caught my
attention were the two blue vans parked inside the police block, next to the
island's only police car.

Those weren't just ordinary vans; I knew that
from my time as a real reporter on one of the local papers in Copenhagen. These
were the vans from the Forensic team. These guys were only called out if it was
a murder case.

My curiosity got the better of me and I put the
box down and walked closer. I joined the small crowd of neighbors and passersby
who had stopped to watch. Behind the tape I spotted several people in blue
bodysuits searching the place, picking up small evidence with tweezers and
securing them in plastic bags.

"Iiiinteresting, huh?" a man standing
next to me asked.

"Excuse me?" I asked and looked at
him. My first thought was that he was some kind of weirdo, with his brown
beanie covering his hair and forehead, and those black clothes and his stooping
posture. He had both of his hands in his pockets like he was cold, but it was
warm outside. But something in his eyes made me think twice. They seemed nice.

"Wwwwhat hhhappened?" he said.

I shrugged. "I don't know. I just got
here."

"Yyyyyyou're ... ttthat ... nnnew ooone,
right?" he stuttered horribly like the fact that I was now looking at him
made it worse.

I smiled compassionately and nodded knowing how
fast news spread in a small place like this. "Yes. We just moved in."

"Wwwelcome ... I'm ... Jjjjack. I ... I ...
lllive aaaacross fffrom yyyyou."

"Well hi then, Jack," I said and for
some strange reason couldn't help thinking about Jack the ripper. Jack wasn't a
common Danish name, but I didn't want to ask him about it, since I feared
embarrassing him having to speak more than one sentence. I had never known
anyone stuttering before and was afraid to somehow embarrass him.

"It's just because he doesn't know you
yet," a woman standing to my other side said.

I turned and looked at her. Seemed to be about
my age, the beginning or middle of her thirties, maybe a little more.
"Sorry?"

"Jack always stutters when he gets nervous.
New people make him nervous. Especially when they're pretty like you."

I almost laughed but I could tell she was
serious.

"Hi, I'm Sophia. I live next to Jack on the
other side of the street across from your house. The cheap side." She
reached out her hand and I took it.

"Emma," I said.

"Got any kids, Emma?" Sophia asked.

"Two. A teenage daughter and a
seven-year-old son."

Sophia nodded. "Good for you. I have five.
All with different fathers. I'll tell you about them one day, but you'll have
to bring the wine."

I chuckled. "I will. Do you have any idea
what happened here?"

"Old Mrs. Heinrichsen was found dead this
morning. That's all I know so far. Not that she'll be missed around here, old
hag."

"Oh," I said and looked at the scene.
I spotted Officer Dan among the people in there. He saw me too and waved.

"So what do you do, Emma?" Sophia
asked. "For a living."

"Well I'm a writer."

"Written anything interesting lately?"
she asked.

"Nope. Still waiting for that million
dollars idea for that bestseller I'm planning on living on for the rest of my
life. Until then I'm living off the money I got from selling my apartment in
Copenhagen."

"Should keep you going for a long time out
here," Sophia said. "Not much to spend money on unless you like to
buy tourist crap."

"I really don't," I said. "Well,
better get back to the kids."

"Shoot! The kids!" Sophia said and
walked back with me. "Keep forgetting about them. Must be wishful
thinking, huh?"

"See you around," Sophia said and
waved. I waved back thinking it was going to be easy to make friends here.

It was in the moment I turned and looked back at
the scene that it struck me.

I should write about this. I
should write a book about the murder at Fanoe Island.

There was a
small
toilet and a sink in the corner of the room,
that Astrid used to throw up in in the mornings. The nausea had grown worse and
so did her worry that no one was going to come after her, that they had somehow
forgotten about her.

Or maybe they were in fact looking for her,
maybe
he
was looking for her up
there, but was looking in all the wrong places?

But you don't believe that
anymore, do you?

It was hot in the bunker and Astrid was happy
that she had worn a dress on the day that she had been trapped down there. It
was expandable and too big, so there was room to grow.

Days went by  - at least she felt like it
was days - it might have been weeks without a sound from the outside. From time
to time Astrid hammered her fists on the iron door and yelled and screamed from
the top of her lungs, but soon she gave up the fight. It was useless. It was a
horrifying thought, cruel and gruesome beyond anything, but she was beginning
to think that maybe, just maybe she was stuck down her forever, or at least
until the ration of food and water ran out. Then she would surely starve to
death eventually. The thought made her start to cry again, but there were no
more tears left.  She fought hard not to allow the thoughts of a slow
death caused by starvation and thirst enter her fragile mind and poison her
spirit, but it was a fight she knew she would lose. Was death really the only
way out of this shithole?

"Won't anyone miss me?" she mumbled
and heard the echo of her own voice. "Mom? Christian? Anyone?"

Are you even looking for me?

The feeling of loneliness crept up upon her and
she hugged her blanket just to not feel so alone. For a long time - only God
knows how long - she sat staring at the barren walls and the packed shelves
with food enough for what? A month? Two? At least enough for now.

You mustn't give up. Don't
give up the fight. Don't give in to those bitter thoughts. You're not a failure
till you give up the fight.

Astrid sniffled and wiped her nose with the back
of her hand. This was not the time to throw a pity-party, she convinced
herself. Sad thoughts like that would only drag her down, only make things
worse. Since there wasn't anything she could do to change her situation, Astrid
decided to make the best of what she had. So to keep the boredom out, she
started stacking cans in high towers. She had made five that reached all the
way to the ceiling and only needed one more can to finish the sixth, when one
fell down and Astrid bend down to the floor to pick it up. That was when she
spotted something under the old bed that she had been sleeping on. She pulled
it out. A wide smile spread on her face. It was a radio. An old one with a
broken antenna, but it was still a radio. She turned the button on top to see
if it worked and a crackling sound filled the room. She held her breath while
turning the button to find a station and cheered out loudly when the sound of
Queen "We will rock you" filled the room. It wasn't a clear sound,
but it was a sound.

Finally something else than
the sound of my own tired breath or the sound of me sobbing
.

The radio ran on batteries she realized but she
had seen stacks of batteries in one of the boxes on the shelves, so she should
be good for a while. She put the radio on the table, then sat down on the bed
and listened to the tunes and voices of a DJ so far away, yet so close to her
she felt like she could almost see him. 

It was like a drop of hope in an ocean of
despair. But it was enough for Astrid to get her spirits up again, to make her
remember the world outside and not lose her mind in the small suffocating room.

Victor was
still playing
in the yard when I returned to the
house. Maya was nowhere to be seen. I walked out the French doors and looked at
my son playing in the piles of leaves on the ground, talking to the trees like
he used to do to the plants back in our apartment in Copenhagen.

They like it when you talk to
them, Mommy. They need company too
.

It was okay, his doctor had said.

"It's probably just easier for him to talk
to things that won't answer. People with light autism like Victor find it hard
to be social and be with people. At least this way he's not lonely."

"But he tells me they talk back," I
had said.

"It's still okay. No harm in that. He just
has a vivid imagination and that's not a bad thing. Let him. Just remember to
not let him lose complete touch with reality. He'll be just fine. You'll
see."

Other doctors hadn't been as positive. His
school had claimed he was getting worse and soon after demanded I did something
and had given me pamphlets and numbers of physicians who knew a lot about his
condition. They told me he needed all kinds of medicine and basically scared
the crap out of me. After that I tried all kinds of group therapy and
acupuncture and whatnot, but nothing had helped him. The fact was that he was
living in a world of his own from time to time and there were days I was afraid
of losing him to it completely, but somehow he always returned to me.

As I watched him in the yard I couldn't see
anything wrong with him playing on his own, even if he was talking to the trees
like they were alive. How could there be anything wrong with that when he was
this happy? I was beginning to think I should have stuck with our family
doctor's advice and just not overdramatize the whole thing. The so-called
specialists didn't even have a name for what was supposed to be wrong with him.
It wasn't Asperger's Disorder, it wasn't autism, it was something milder, but
still interfering with his social skills.

Personally I believed he was just sad that his
father had left him. That's all it was if you asked me, but then again, I
wasn't a doctor.

The wind had picked up but it wasn't cold yet
even if it was September. It was what they called Indian summer. Victor seemed
to still be in his seventh heaven so I decided to let him play for a little
more and did some more unpacking. Maya had taken her stuff I was happy to see,
so I had only mine and Victor's left. I spent a couple of hours unpacking my
kitchen stuff, then an hour or so in the living room removing some of my
grandmother's stuff and putting up my own pictures and so on. I called for a
pizza and we ate and went to bed.

The next day I continued where I had stopped the
day before. After breakfast I picked up a box, went upstairs to my bedroom and
opened it. I removed some of my grandmother's old books from the shelves and
put my own up instead, then I arranged the old desk, found my laptop and placed
it in the middle.

The idea still lingered in my head. Everybody
loved a good murder-mystery, didn't they? Maybe I could write one based on Mrs.
Heinrichsen's story. My fingers were eager to start typing and I turned on the
laptop and sat down on a beautiful old hand carved wooden chair. Even if it
wasn't quite my style I quite enjoyed the furniture my grandmother had left me.
It was beautiful, very old-fashioned and a lot of it probably antique, but it
was stunning. An old long case clock that looked like it was several centuries
old chimed in the corner. It was quite a sound.

My computer made a sound and I opened the
Internet. I didn't have my own connection yet, but none of the neighbor's was
locked or even had a passcode, so I used one of theirs till I had my own
installed. It felt good to be connected to the world again and I started
searching the newspapers on the web for the murder on Fanoe Island. A few
popped up, but most of them just small notes stating someone was found dead in
a house in Fanoe Island and that the police thought it might be murder. Nothing
deeper than that. No details.

"Guess it's not that big a story when an
old woman dies," I mumbled and looked out the window.

I spotted Jack doing yard work across the
street, still wearing that beanie of his covering his hair and I wondered if he
might be going bald underneath. I picked up my binoculars and couldn't help but
chuckle watching him. He somehow reminded me a little of Victor, the way he
seemed to be in his own world of some sort. I saw him run inside, then come
back with a tray between his hands. She must have been there the whole time,
but I just hadn't noticed until now, that he was handing her the tray with
food. A woman in a wheelchair. I observed her as he started feeding her with a
spoon. The food ran out of her mouth again and like with a small child he
scraped it of her chin and forced it back in. He said something to her, she
didn't respond. Then she lifted her hand and planted it directly on top of the
bowl causing it to tip and the food to spill. Jack stood up and started wiping
it off.

How old was this woman? I wondered. She didn't
look very old. Was she his wife?

I put the binoculars down and decided it was
enough snooping on the neighbors for today. I turned to the computer and
scrolled in the articles some more. Nothing much about Mrs. Heinrichsen, a
small portrait of a woman who had been very important to the locals on the
island, known to have been a big contributor to the local church. She and her
husband had raised the money to renovate it back in the eighties when it was
falling apart and there was no money. I sighed and leaned back in my chair. If
I was to write a book about this, then I needed something more. I needed the
dirty details. And I knew exactly how to get that.

Before I met the father of my children I had
once dated this guy who was a hacker. He could get in everywhere and he taught
me a little too, something I up until now had only done for fun and to keep up
to date. But now for the first time I wanted to use it for my own benefit. It
was illegal as hell, but I knew how to do it without getting caught. So after
about an hour of trying I managed to hack into the police files at the local
police station. Not that it was protected very well, I admit to that, but it
was still part of a nationwide system that the police used everywhere. I found
the report Officer Dan had written and opened it. I started reading. The
station had received a call at ten past seven a.m. and Officer Dan had
responded. A man working for Mrs. Heinrichsen was supposed to drive her to the
mainland to meet with her lawyer and when she didn't come out on her own he
feared that something might have happened to her, that she might have fallen
and hurt herself. But nothing had been able to prepare him for what he saw, he
said in the statement.

I opened the pictures from the scene of crime
attached and looked. What I saw made my stomach turn. The remains of an old
woman lying on her bed. It looked like she had been cut open. On the wall
behind her the killer had written the number four in blood. I covered my mouth
with my hand as I read the forensics' report. She had bled to death in her bed.
Apparently some of the woman's organs were missing. The liver, the lungs and
the heart had been cut out and removed. The forensics believed it had been done
while the woman was still alive.

I leaned back and studied the pictures. I felt
nauseated by the thought of her still being alive while this was done. I could
hardly imagine the pain and to think it had happened right down the street from
me? Why wasn't it mentioned in the papers? I couldn't stop thinking why her
organs had been removed. Why would anyone want to cut out her organs? To sell
them? Yes, organs could be worth a lot on the black market, but she was an old
woman? Why choose her and not a young person with fresh, new organs?

It didn't make sense.