Where Monsters Dwell by Jørgen Brekke Read Free Book Online Page B

than fiction,” said Laubach.
    They stood in silence for a moment, mulling over what he had said. Then Patterson voiced what they were all thinking.
    “Does this mean we’re looking at a serial killer?”
    “Based on the crime scene alone, I would venture to say that the perpetrator has killed before,” Laubach said. “What do you think, Stone?”
    She knew why he had asked. Last year she had taken part in a three-month-long course on serial killers, at the FBI in Washington, D.C.
    “I’d say that you’re right, Laubach. Even just looking at the crime scene. But at the same time…”
    “At the same time what?” asked Patterson. Felicia couldn’t help thinking that he often acted like an impatient little boy, even though he was older than she was, and more experienced. But she also knew that it was precisely this impatience that made him the talented investigator he was.
    “At the same time I think we can say with certainty that he has never killed quite like this before,” Felicia replied.
    “How can you tell?” asked Patterson.
    “It’s too extreme, too conspicuous—almost theatrical, as if the killer wants to be noticed. If there had been other murders like this before, we would remember. We would have studied them. They would have been required curriculum. Flayed alive, tied up, and throat sliced? I haven’t read about anything like that.”
    “There is Ed Gein, though,” Laubach pointed out.
    “Of course, but we’re talking about the present,” she said. She knew about Ed Gein. The much too real grave robber and killer from the sleepy little town of Plainfield in the 1950s. He didn’t just flay his victims; he also skinned the bodies he stole from the local cemetery. But this was different. “There’s something about the location of this crime scene,” she went on. “The Edgar Allan Poe Museum. I have a feeling the choice was no accident. We don’t have a series of killings yet, but maybe it’s starting right here.”
    “Could it be somebody who’s killed before, but who has gradually worked his way up to this stage?” Patterson asked.
    “And what exactly would be the intermediate stages to a murder like this?” she replied dryly.
    Laubach broke in. “What if the perpetrator has killed before in other countries: Mexico, Brazil, Russia? How much do we know about possible serial killers abroad?”
    “Actually, the FBI has a surprisingly good overview, better than any other international agency. We discussed several foreign cases in the FBI course I took, including a possibly unsolved case in Europe, but nothing that was anything like this one. Still, there’s always a chance. But a foreigner here in Richmond? And why here at the museum?” Felicia once again recalled her friend’s wedding invitation and the words “burlesque” and “macabre.”
    “I’d be surprised if Morris doesn’t ask us to cast a wider net, but I have a feeling that there’s a connection between the victim, or at least the victim’s workplace, and the perpetrator,” she said.
    At that moment Patterson, Laubach, and Stone all received the same text message:
    You’ve seen the crime scene. Laubach will put his team to work. Reynolds is coming back to talk to the staff. The rest of us will meet at the station in an hour. War council.
    It was from Morris.

 
    7
    Trondheim, September 2010
    When Vatten woke up on Sunday, it was way past breakfast and the usual time for his Sunday walk. He drank his coffee and looked out the window. Then he put on a pair of worn but sturdy hiking boots and rain gear and went out. He walked all the way up to Kuhaugen Hill, sat down on a bench, and looked out over the town and the fjord. The drizzle landed like drops of dew on his face, and he hoped for a moment that the rain would clear his thoughts enough to remember more than just blurry glimpses of what had happened in the library the day before. Or that it would also wash away the unpleasant feeling that he had done