Postcard killers

She looked at him, her eyes large and green.

"I've got one at home," she said.

Chapter 74

It was the first time in nearly six months that he'd been in somebody's home.

It felt odd, almost a bit ceremonial. He took off his shoes by the door because that's what Dessie did.

She lived in a minimal y furnished four-room apartment with very high ceilings, a lot of mirrored doors, ornate plasterwork, and a wood-burning stove in every room.

Jacob couldn't help whistling out loud when he entered the living room.

Three large windows opened onto an enormous balcony with a fantastic view over the entrance to Stockholm harbor.

"How did you get hold of a place like this? It's great."

"Long story," she said. "The computer's in the maid's room. There's no maid, of course."

She gestured toward a little room beyond the kitchen.

"Have you got any wine around here?" he asked.

"Nope," she said. "I don't drink that much. Maybe I wil after this."

She turned the computer on for him. He noticed she smel ed of fruit.

Citrus. Very nice.

He sent two e-mails on the same subject: one to Jil Stevens, his closest col eague on the NYPD, and one to Lyndon Crebbs, the retired FBI agent who had been his mentor once upon a time, and maybe stil was.

He asked them rather bluntly for information about Sylvia and Malcolm Rudolph, residents of Santa Barbara, California, and about Bil y Hamilton, Sylvia Rudolph's former boyfriend, reportedly living somewhere in western Los Angeles. Everything, no matter what it was, was of interest to him, absolutely everything they could find.

Then he went back out to the kitchen, where Dessie was rummaging around.

"I found a bottle of red," she said. "Gabriel a must have left it. I don't know if it's stil good."

"Yeah, of course it is," Jacob said.

She seemed unfamiliar with how to extract a cork, so he helped her.

They sat down on the sofas in the living room, leaving the lights off, admiring the stu

Jacob leaned back, sinking into her cushions.

A white boat plowed toward the center of Stockholm out on the water.

"A view like this makes coming home worthwhile," he said. "What's the long story you mentioned?"

Chapter 75

Dessiefingered her wineglass. she'd never told anyone the whole truth about how she bought the apartment, not even Christer or Gabriel a. So why should she tel Jacob Kanon?

He was a cop on top of everything.

"I inherited a large sum of money a while back," she said. "From my mother."

Jacob raised an eyebrow.

"I thought you said she worked with the elderly and the sick?"

"That's right, she did."

"So you're upper class," he said. "I hadn't guessed that."

She knew exactly what he was thinking. He thought her mother was the sort who jangled their jewelry in front of the poor at charity galas.

"You're wrong," she said. "Do you real y want to know this story? I don't do chitchat very wel."

"I real y want to know."

She put her glass down on the coffee table.

That security van raid I mentioned yesterday – you remember?"

He nodded and emptied his glass, then fil ed it again.

"Three of my uncles were involved," she said. "They got hold of almost nine mil ion kronor, which was something like eight and a half mil ion more than they were expecting, and they panicked. They didn't know what to do with al the money. They buried some of it, but they put most of it in my mother's savings account."

"What!" Jacob exclaimed, almost choking on his wine. "You're kidding me."

"It was pretty smart of them, as it turned out. Al the money they buried was found, but no one thought to check my mother's account."

She watched careful y for his reaction. Was he about to turn his back on her? Dismiss her as the daughter of a scheming criminal?

"Your uncles can't have been the sharpest knives in the drawer," he said.

She avoided his gaze as she went on with the story.

"They al got the same punishment, five and a half years for aggravated robbery. They were due to be released in May four years ago. That winter had been unusual y snowy in Adalen, and my mother helped the old folks clear the snow, which she wasn't supposed to do because the doctor told her… But she was stubborn. And proud."

Dessie picked up her glass and turned it slowly in her hand.

"She died on Hilding Olsson's drive with a snow shovel in her hand."

She took a careful sip. "The amount in her savings account was completely untouched, and I was her only heir."

Chapter 76

"Shit," Jacob said. "That's a hel of a story."

He didn't seem horrified, more like impressed.

"Didn't your uncles come and ask for their money when they got out?"

She sighed.

"Of course. They were pretty persistent until I cal ed my cousin Robert in Kalix and asked him for a favor. For two hundred thousand and a bottle of Absolut every Christmas, he's promised to make sure the rest of the family leaves me alone. Which they pretty much do."

Jacob was staring at her, wide-eyed.

"Wow," he said.

"Robert's two meters tal and weighs a hundred and thirty kilos," Dessie said. "He's very persuasive."

"I might have guessed," Jacob said.

She looked at him.

The story of how she had been able to afford the apartment had gnawed away at her for almost four years now. She had been terrified that someone would find out what had real y happened. Now she had dragged her secret out, and Jacob didn't seem the least bit bothered. Instead, he seemed amused.

Al of a sudden she realized she was weak with tiredness from al the tension of the day.

She stood up, clutching her glass like someone's hand.

"I real y have to go to bed," she said.

Jacob took the almost empty bottle back to the kitchen. He pul ed on his shoes by the door and stood up straight again. He hesitated by the door.

"You're pretty cool," he said in a quiet voice.

"You're pretty weird," she said. "Do you know that?"

He shut the door soundlessly behind him.

She leaned her forehead against the door and listened to the sound of his footsteps as they disappeared down the marble staircase.

"Plus, I'm stubborn. And proud," said Dessie.

Chapter 77

Thursday, June 17

Malcolm Rudolph had draped his body so that he was half lying in his chair in the interrogation room. His legs were wide apart and one arm was hooked around the back of the chair.

His tousled hair had fallen across his forehead, and the top two buttons of his shirt were undone.

"It was cool. We were traveling around, studying art and life," he said over the sound coming from the television monitor.

And death, Jacob thought as he sat in the control room, listening to the murderer talk.

Above al, you studied death, you bastard.

"It was real y great to begin with," the fair-haired man said and yawned.

"Although it's gotten a bit boring in recent weeks, actual y."

So, to start with, they thought it was fun kil ing people, Jacob thought.

Then that became routine as wel. How would you like an axe through your skul? Would that be cool, or just half cool?

Mats Duval and Sara Hoglund were going through the log of the Rudolphs' movements in Europe over the past six months.

Their passports showed that Malcolm and Sylvia Rudolph had landed at Frankfurt airport eight and a half months ago, October 1.

Since then, according to Malcolm, they had been traveling around, looking at paintings and enjoying life. They had kept within the part of the European Union governed by the Schengen Agreement – in other words the countries that no longer insisted you show a passport when you crossed between them. So they had no stamps to show where they had been.