What Never Happens (10 page)

“You make great food,” he said and smiled broadly.

He was looking at Adam.

“Thank you,” Johanne said.

“I made the dressing,” laughed Adam. “The dressing is the most important part. But you’re right. Johanne is the cook in this house. I’m just . . . a gourmet. I take care of the details. Everything that makes an ordinary meal more—”

He laughed when she hit him with the kitchen towel.

“Can’t take being teased,” he said and pulled her to him. “But good at heart.” He kissed her and didn’t want to let go.

“That argument in the kitchen,” Sigmund started, self- consciously folding the napkin before pushing it away from him, not knowing what he should do with the torn remains. “It could’ve been about anything.”

“Yes,” Adam said and let go of Johanne. “But I still think we should make a note that there might be something to it. Not only were Kari Mundal and Rudolf Fjord at loggerheads, but the argument was so important that they also missed Kristian Mundal’s well-prepared speech. It’s not like Kari to miss an opportunity to praise and support her husband. And Rudolf Fjord was pretty worked up.”

“Politics,” Johanne said, “is no Sunday school, as you know. If all angry disagreements on the political sidelines were grounds for suspecting murder, you’d have your work cut out for you.”

“Yes, but—” Adam pulled another bar stool up to the island unit and made himself comfortable with his legs apart and his arms leaning on the counter—“there was just something about the whole situation,” he said quietly. “Something . . .” Then he shook his head. “It has been noted,” he said lightly. “But we’ll leave it at that. We’ve got plenty else to do. At least at the moment.”

“At the moment we’ve got next to nothing,” Sigmund sulked. “In either of the cases. Nada.”

“You’re exaggerating a bit,” Adam said. “We do have some leads.”

“Some,” muttered Sigmund.

“But nothing that fits together,” Adam continued. “Nothing that leads anywhere. I agree with you there. We established almost immediately that there weren’t any links between the two women, other than the obvious. And we’ve been over it a thousand times. The brutality of the murder. The gender of the victims. The fact that they were both in the public eye. Where they lived.”

He gave a long yawn and continued, “But it’s doubtful that we’re looking for a killer who’s got something against Lørenskog. Victoria and Fiona didn’t know each other, had no mutual friends or acquaintances other than what is normal in such a small country. They weren’t involved in any of the same work. They lived very different lives. One was single and loved parties, and the other had a family and a young child. To me, it seems—”

“That we’re looking at two separate cases, all the same,” Johanne said. She was holding the kettle under the faucet. “But both murderers must have been strong. Victoria was killed outside her house and lifted into the bedroom. Fiona was overpowered.”

“Do you often talk like that?” Sigmund asked.

“Like what?”

“Finishing off each other’s sentences. Like my sister’s twins.”

“We are of course spiritual twins,” said Johanne, who smiled when Sigmund didn’t pick up on the irony. “Think the same, feel the same. Coffee?”

“Yes please. But if”—he put his hand in front of his mouth and tried to muffle a deep burp—“if this really is two cases, is it possible that the second killer, the one who killed Victoria Heinerback, wanted to make it look like the work of a serial killer?”

“Hardly, when there’s only been two murders,” Adam said. “That’s almost pathetic. But first we have to agree that it isn’t the work of one killer.”

“But that’s obviously not possible,” Johanne said. “Not yet. But I agree, even though there are many similarities, the type of similarities is not such that . . . well, the murders don’t exactly look like a series.”

“I wondered,” Sigmund started and then blushed like a boy with his head full of sex. He scratched his thigh and cocked his head awkwardly. At that moment Johanne thought he was sweet. She poured the boiling water into the French press, filled a pitcher with milk, and put out a bowl of brown sugar.

“I just wondered”—Sigmund tried again—“about how the whole profiling . . .”

He couldn’t decide whether to use the Norwegian or English pronunciation and pinched his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

“Just say it in Norwegian,” Johanne said. “It sounds like some sort of detective film when you say it in English. Don’t you think?”

He filled his cup with too much coffee and had to put his lips to the rim and sip the boiling hot liquid before he dared to lift it up.

“Ow. Ow.” He rubbed his upper lip and snuffled on, “We know quite a bit ourselves. A lot, in fact. But as you’ve actually trained with the FBI and all that, with that top guy, well, I thought—”

“Milk?” interrupted Adam and filled up Sigmund’s cup with milk without waiting for an answer. “Sugar? Here.”

“Profiling can mean many things,” said Johanne and handed Sigmund a towel. “Any murder will generally involve elements that point to some of the killer’s characteristics. In that sense, profiling is used in all investigations. It’s just that you don’t use that term.”

As he aimlessly wiped the surface in front of him, the milky coffee going everywhere, Sigmund said, “You mean, when we find a man in his own filthy home with a knife in his groin and the guy who called the police is standing in the corner sloshed and sniveling, then we make a profile? A ‘killer who’s drunk and argued with a close relative and the knife just happened to be there but he didn’t mean to kill him and is really sorry now and would have called for help later’ type profile?”

Johanne burst out laughing and wiped away the remains of the coffee with paper towels. “I couldn’t have put it better myself,” she said. “And the profile you just gave is so usual and easily constructed that it takes no more than thirty seconds to establish that the drunk in the corner is guilty. But you and Adam don’t deal with many cases like that. The NCIS deals with much worse cases.”

“But Johanne,” Sigmund said, eager now. “I assume that you analyze each case by picking it to pieces—”

“You analyze the modus operandi,” Johanne said helpfully. “Take it to pieces, as you put it, look at all the elements of the crime. Then we make deductions based on the various factors and the overall impression. When we’re analyzing, we give a lot of importance to the victim’s background and behavior prior to the crime, both from his point of view and an external point of view, as well as the actual killing. It’s a massive amount of work. And”—the steam from her cup clouded her glasses—“it would be hard to find a science that is more uncertain, more difficult, or less reliable than profiling.”

“What you’re describing is basically the same as tactical investigation,” Sigmund said with a cynical frown.

“It’s very similar.” Johanne nodded and added, “The main difference is that tactical investigation, much more than profiling, deals with . . . how should I put it . . . undisputed fact. Profilers are often psychologists. A tactical investigator’s purpose is to find the killer, whereas a profiler’s job is to build up a psychological picture of the killer. So in a way, profiling is just a tool in the tactical investigation.”

“So if you were going to say something about Fiona Helle’s murder alone,” said Sigmund, whose cheeks were flushed with excitement, “Forgetting Victoria Heinerback for the moment, what would you say?”

Johanne looked at Sigmund over the rim of her cup.

“I’m not quite sure,” she said slowly. “The whole thing seems very . . . un-Norwegian. I don’t like the expression, as it’s no longer possible to protect ourselves from gruesome murders like these. But all the same”—she took a deep breath and then drank some coffee—“I would say,” she started after a few moments, “that it’s possible to see the outlines of two very different profiles. Starting with the similarities: Fiona Helle’s murder was well planned. It was obviously premeditated, so we’re looking for someone who’s capable of planning someone else’s death in detail. The little paper basket can have had no other function than to hold the severed tongue. It was a perfect fit. We can more or less dismiss the idea that someone might think about cutting their victim’s tongue out without killing them. The time of the killing was also right. Tuesday evening. Everyone knew that Fiona Helle was on her own on Tuesday evenings. And in several interviews she boasted that Lørenskog was ‘a peaceful oasis away from stresses of the city.’” With two fingers, she drew quote marks in the air.

“Quite a statement,” Adam said.

“And it was very stupid of her to tell the whole world that she didn’t need to lock her door in the little cul-de-sac where she lived, as everyone looked out for their neighbors, and no one was nasty.”

Sigmund snorted and added, “The Romerike boys got in touch with her to warn her about saying things like that, afterwards. But she still left the door open. She said something about ‘not giving in to evil.’ Jesus . . .” He mumbled something incomprehensible into his cup of coffee.

“In any case,” Johanne said and pulled over a pad of paper that Adam had found in Kristiane’s red toy chest. “The murder was premeditated. So we’ve already come quite a long way.” She leaned her elbows on the counter. “There are also grounds for drawing another relatively given conclusion. I would say that the killing shows signs of intense hatred. The fact that it was premeditated, the killer’s determined, criminal intention, and the method . . .”

There was a short silence. Johanne wrinkled her brow slightly and turned her left ear toward the hall.

“It was nothing,” Adam said. “Nothing.”

“To strangle someone, tie her up, cut out her tongue . . .” Johanne was talking quietly now, tense, still listening. “Hate,” she concluded. “But then the problems start. The drama of it, the split tongue, the origami . . . the whole thing, in fact . . .”

Her red pencil was drawing slow circles on the paper.

“It could be a cover. An act. Camouflage. The symbolism is so blatantly obvious, so—”

“Childish?” suggested Sigmund.

“Exactly. So simple, in any case, that it could almost appear to be a cover-up. The intention was possibly to confuse people. And then we’re talking about an unusually cunning person who must have hated Fiona Helle intensely. And then we’re no further forward than—”

“Back where we started,” Adam said with resignation. “But what if the symbolism
was
sincere?”

“Goodness . . . Didn’t the Native Americans use it literally? “White man speak with forked tongue”? If we assume that the killer mutilated her body to tell the world something, it must be that Fiona Helle was not what she pretended to be. She was a liar. A traitor. According to him, that is. The murderer. Which in this rather flimsy and therefore totally unusable profile would verge on . . . utter madness.”

“Shame”—Sigmund said, yawning loudly—“that we can’t find any problems in her life. No major conflicts. A bit of jealousy here and there; she was a successful lady. A dispute with the tax authorities a couple of years ago. And one with a neighbor about a spruce that blocked the light from Fiona’s study. Of no consequence. The tree was chopped down, by the way. Without the case going to court.”

“Strange that there isn’t anything,” Johanne started and then stopped. “Now?”

Her anxiety was obvious when she looked at Adam.

“It’s nothing,” he said again. “Relax. She’s asleep.”

Johanne had agreed that Ragnhild should sleep in her bedroom, at least when they had guests.

“It’s strange,” she repeated hesitantly, “that you can’t find anything, nothing that even resembles dirt in Fiona Helle’s life. Very strange indeed. After all, she was forty-two. You must’ve missed something.”

“Look yourself, then,” Sigmund said, obviously offended. “We’ve had fifteen men on the job for several weeks now and have come up with a big fat nothing. Maybe the woman really was a paragon of virtue.”

“There is no paragon of virtue.”

“But what about the profile then?”

“Which profile?”

“The one you were going to make,” Sigmund said.

“I can’t make a profile of the person who killed Fiona Helle,” Johanne said and then drank the rest of her coffee in one gulp. “Not of any consequence, at least. No one can. But I can give you a tip. Look for the lies in her life. Find the lie. Then you may not even need a profile. You’ll have the man.”

“Or woman,” said Adam with a faint smile.

Johanne didn’t even bother to answer. Instead she tiptoed out to the bedroom.

“Is she always so stressed?” Sigmund whispered.

“Yes.”

“That would drive me nuts.”

“You hardly see your family.”

“Shut up. I’m at home more than most people I know.”

“Which doesn’t say much.”

“You’re just whipped.”

“You fool,” Adam smiled. “More coffee?”

“No thanks. But some of that.” He pointed toward the other end of the table, where a bottle glinted yellow and brown in the light of the candle on the windowsill.

“Aren’t you driving?”

“The wife’s got the car. Parents’ night at school or something like that.”

“See what I mean.” Adam got down two oversized cognac glasses and poured some in. “Cheers,” he said.

“Not a lot to raise our glasses to,” said Sigmund and took a drink.

Jack’s claws clacked over the parquet. The animal stopped in the middle of the floor, where he stretched and gave a long yawn.

“Looks like he’s laughing,” mumbled Sigmund.

“I think he is,” Adam replied. “At us, maybe. Our worries. All he thinks about is food.”

The dog wagged his tail and padded out to the kitchen. He whined a bit by the garbage can. He sniffed around on the floor and greedily licked up the bits of grease and breadcrumbs.

“Your food’s in the dish,” Adam said. “Woof!”

Jack yapped and growled at the cabinet door.

“Don’t wind him up. Stop it, Jack!” Johanne had come back with an awake Ragnhild in her arms.

“I knew I heard something,” she said without trying to disguise the triumph in her voice. “She’s wet. You can change her. Jack, go and lie down!”