Call Me Princess Part 15

Louise heard herself rashly blurt out that it might be a good idea to wait. "If we hold off on the warning, I might run into the perp on Friday." She regretted it right away-mostly because it sent a shudder through Susanne, who was leaning forward, completely on edge. Louise sensed that her words had sent a tremor through the phone connection back to police headquarters as well.

"I think you'd better explain what you mean by that," Heilmann said.

"I'd rather not go into the details right now," Louise said.

She needed to figure out how she could present the idea so Suhr didn't think she was deranged and transfer her to arson or something.

"There's a social mixer event for one of the big online dating sites this Friday," Louise explained, "and I think he might decide to attend. It's just an idea, but you have to get Suhr to wait until we've discussed it as an option."

- "YEAH, YEAH, YEAH," LIEUTENANT SUHR GRUMBLED IMPATIENTLY, holding his hand up in the air to stop her. "Camilla Lind already explained the pros and cons. And I think she's right. We ought to give it a try."

Louise hid her hands behind her back, pinching her index finger hard to keep herself from fuming. Oh, that Camilla! She promised she wouldn't say anything. That woman just couldn't help herself.

"The question is really whether we dare keep this from the public any longer, now that we've got two serious cases on our hands," Heilmann said rationally.

Louise still had not quite regained her composure yet. She had just dropped Susanne off with Jakobsen, who had been waiting for them in the doorway to his office, ready. He had put his arm around Susanne in a fatherly way and shepherded her inside. Once he'd gotten her settled on the comfortable couch, he came back out and let Louise know that he was going to keep Susanne for a while, so Louise didn't need to wait. They agreed that he would call when Susanne was ready to go.

The whole way over to headquarters, Louise had contemplated how best to pitch Camilla's idea without revealing that the idea had come from a reporter. She might as well have spared herself the trouble.

"Of course the trouble is that we might not recognize him," Suhr said. "We saw only a glimpse of him on the CCTV footage, and we didn't get much from that."

It caught Louise by surprise that Suhr was evidently taking Camilla's idea seriously, already envisioning apprehending the guy.

"True," Louise agreed, "but I saw enough of him that I'm sure I would recognize his distinctive silhouette and posture if I saw him again. You need-"

Again he gestured with his hand to stop her.

"We'll bring the girl," Suhr said.

His statement hung in the air until Heilmann and Louise grasped what he meant, and then they both yelled in unison, "Absolutely not!"

Louise shook her head and added indignantly, "She just tried to commit suicide, Lieutenant."

"Not because of him, if I understand correctly," Suhr retorted.

Louise stared at him for a moment. He was usually such a considerate person to work with. His tone was far from the gruff style Willumsen had made part of his image. And yet, every once in a while Suhr would make seemingly callous and unfeeling decisions. At the same time, Louise could appreciate why he had made this suggestion.

"We'll just need to see what Jakobsen says about that," Heilmann cautioned.

"Maybe we should just skip that and stick to the original plan for the investigation," Louise suggested.

"No, I think we d.a.m.n well ought to give this a try," Suhr argued. "There'll be an unG.o.dly uproar when we go public with the warning, especially since our description of the suspect is so vague. No, we'll do this social event on Friday. If we don't get anything out of it, then we'll go to the public.

"Sergeant, you update Jakobsen on this and see what he has to say," Suhr continued. "We'll have another meeting once you've planned out our approach. Take Toft and Stig with you. They could stand to get out a little."

"Wasn't the idea for Lars to go too?" Louise asked. "I mean, at least he's seen the footage."

Suhr nodded absentmindedly. He had already mentally moved on to the next thing on his to-do list. Just as Suhr was leaving, Louise asked how things were going on the investigation of the immigrant woman's murder.

Suhr turned around and glared at her, his lips pursed, but then the muscles in his face relaxed, and he shrugged slightly.

"We haven't gotten anywhere. Unfortunately, the guy lucked out and got a.s.signed Jens Bro as his public defender for his prelim."

She felt for Suhr and Willumsen. It made all their cases absurdly more difficult when they got stuck with aggressive defense attorneys. She had encountered Bro herself one time when he was representing one of the biggest drug dealers in Danish history, but Bro's efforts to find evidence exonerating his client had indirectly saved Camilla's life. Louise didn't have anything bad to say about him-but it was a fact that you needed to be on top of things and have truly rock-solid evidence when facing him in court.

"What happened to the woman's children?"

"Her sister is taking care of them, which the husband is furious about. He'll tell anyone who can be bothered to listen that he's going to be sending the children out of the country soon. He claims the only reason is to ensure their safety and help them regain the peace and balance their mother destroyed when she moved out."

Louise was on her feet. Heilmann had already returned to her office.

"Well, who did it, then, if it wasn't him? Do you have any other suspects?"

"It was him," Suhr said and was about to say more, but stopped himself and instead said they'd gotten statements from everyone in the murdered woman's family and circle of friends.

"We are also quite aware that it may have been some kind of honor killing," he said. "Not because she refused to marry someone her family had picked, but because she had brought shame to his family by leaving the marriage. Her own father might also have a motive if he didn't accept his daughter's divorce, because it went against the choice he made for her," Suhr said, shrugging and making a face. Then he concluded, "If we hadn't relied so much on the witness statements, erroneously believing the murder happened around one o'clock, we would have had him. He probably did pick up the kids earlier that morning as he claimed, but we think he went back sometime between eleven and twelve. Or maybe in the afternoon, just before he said he found her. We don't have any witnesses who saw him come or go, and no one saw anyone else enter or leave the woman's apartment."

Suhr grumbled and added that the man ought to send a nice bottle of wine to his ex-wife's media-happy upstairs neighbor, whose story had gotten him out of jail. Then he thumped his hand against the doorframe to show his annoyance and walked back out to the front office, where his secretary sat.

Louise went back to her office. Her head was buzzing. Her irritation at Camilla for getting involved had abated, but she decided not to tell her that the police would be at the mixer on Friday. And especially not that they might be bringing Susanne.

19.

LOUISE KNEW THE SECOND SHE LET HERSELF INTO THE APARTMENT that Peter was home, because she could hear soft music coming from the living room. It surprised her. It was only six o'clock, and he usually didn't come home until eight at the earliest.

"h.e.l.lo," she called from the entry, pleased that they could finally spend a whole evening together. They could either go out to eat, or get takeout and have a picnic in Frederiksberg Park, she thought. The weather had been surprisingly nice for May: the current temperature was over seventy, and it looked like that would continue.

She smiled and went in to give him a kiss, but she stopped in the doorway, shocked to see three empty beer bottles on the coffee table as well as a fourth that Peter was close to finis.h.i.+ng. He looked like someone had punched him squarely in the chest, forcing him back into the soft cus.h.i.+ons on the couch. His eyes were red and puffy and avoiding her.

"What happened?" she asked, frightened, walking over to sit down in the armchair next to the couch. There was something about the way he looked that kept her from sitting down on the couch next to him, a wall of despair that made him seem sealed off in his own private world.

He still hadn't looked at her; he just sat, staring down at the top of the coffee table, frozen and distant. Finally he pulled himself together and looked at her. He had a hard time getting the words out.

"I came home to tell you I've fallen in love with someone else and I'm moving out today."

She held her breath as his words hung in the air. They buzzed around the room but couldn't penetrate her consciousness.

Peter looked down at his hands, which were clutching his beer bottle.

Louise stared at him, expecting him to continue, but he had disappeared back into his vacuum, and they sat there in silence. She would have thought her head would be bursting with questions and thoughts in a situation like this. But there was just silence. Emptiness.

"Who is she?" she asked, finally.

Her insides were frozen solid. She both did and did not want to know who had forced her way into his heart and driven Louise out. An icy awareness of her own body and soul spread through her, warning her that the worst might be coming now. She pictured herself and Peter. They'd always had a special vibe, such great chemistry between them, and she had let them both down by pulling away and prioritizing herself and her own life. Louise could see now that she had pushed Peter into someone else's arms.

He sighed deeply before responding, not even trying to pull himself together. She would just have to deal. He didn't even try to pretend that he was the master of the situation, as though he was merely pa.s.sing on some necessary information. The sorrow and pain radiated from him.

"It's Lina." His evasive eyes finally fixed on her. "I'm really sorry, but I'm in love with her."

Louise pictured Peter's co-worker's face enlarged and projected onto the living-room wall as though by a slide projector. Sales meetings. Overtime. Business trips. Louise finally noticed the nausea, but she still couldn't discern any sadness or anger. Her emotions were locked away in the block of ice that had settled in her gut.

"I tried to end it," he continued.

The image of the blond sales rep faded from the wall. Louise's memory was blocked-suddenly she couldn't remember the girl anymore or picture her face. She thought of her as a girl, but knew she must be somewhere in her thirties. Maybe a couple of years younger than she was, but definitely no more than that. Louise wasn't being dumped for some hot young thing, but for Peter's co-worker. Which, it turns out, is every f.u.c.king bit as pathetic and heartbreaking, she thought, noticing that her brain was slowly starting to function again.

"I can't tell you how sorry I am," Peter repeated.

The block of ice started to break up, but Louise didn't feel like she was about to dissolve into tears. She felt cold and hard. She matter-of-factly acknowledged in her mind that things hadn't been right between Peter and her ever since he had come home from Scotland. Well, actually, not while he was living in Scotland either, or even really before he had gone. They had made it this far because they had both been working toward the same general things, and they wanted to succeed. He had grudgingly accepted her decision to stay in Denmark. And she had visited him in Scotland as often as she could, even though they had spent most of her visits sightseeing and eating out, not really doing anything that could count as spending quality time on their relations.h.i.+p.

Then when he came home, she had given in and let him move in with her, even though she would have been just as happy if he hadn't. And they had both struggled to live up to each other's expectations, to prove that moving in together was the right decision. She had lost herself in her work, and he had apparently found a more lascivious outlet, she thought, finally feeling a wave of anger. The winter frost had lost its grip on her insides, and now the full intensity of her feelings came thundering to the surface.

"You've been sneaking around s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g her this whole time you had me thinking you were working so hard? What in the f.u.c.k is wrong with you?" she yelled.

She should have known, she thought at the same time. He knew she would believe he was pouring his heart and soul into his work, and she had no reason to doubt his need for so much overtime, given her own workaholic tendencies.

"I totally understand that you're p.i.s.sed at me," Peter said. "You've got every right to chew me out. But I just want you to know that I didn't do it to hurt you."

Louise went ballistic. Oh no, do not tell me he is f.u.c.king sitting there feeling sorry for me. Infuriated, she rose, pointed her index finger toward the bedroom, and said with as much composure as she could muster: "You will go in there now, pack your things, and get out. I don't want to hear another f.u.c.king word about you or what you 'understand.'"

She was shaking and gasping for air as sobs overwhelmed her body.

"Out!" she yelled.

He got up slowly, walked over and put his arm around her. She tried to pull back, but her body wouldn't obey. She sobbed into his shoulder, noticing the smell of beer, and let him lead her over to the couch and sit her down. She hid her face in her hands as she tried to regain some semblance of composure. She slowly caught her breath, breathing deeply several times until she thought was able to speak again without crying.

"I saw you guys in Tivoli last week," she said as the image of them at the window table popped into her head. He sat a moment before responding.

"That was the day I broke up with her. I never meant for it to keep going. I'm not cut out for affairs," he said, trying to laugh. "I get paranoid."

Louise thought bitterly that he would probably get by just fine in life if that was his biggest problem. Glad you figured that one out, she thought, recalling all those nights he had come home late.

"I didn't think I would end up missing her so much," Peter said. "But this past week made it clear to me that I made the wrong choice. She's dwelled in every cell of my body since we broke up in Tivoli."

Louise thought about the duty s.e.x they had had up at her parents' house, cursing at him in her mind and wis.h.i.+ng every cell of his body were far away from her, especially the sperm cells that had ended up inside her.

"And I suppose she's ready to welcome you back even though you dumped her?" Louise asked.

Peter nodded and reached for her hand, which she quickly yanked back. "She wants to have kids and a real home life," he added.

As though that explained everything, Louise thought, staring at him incredulously. He did not seriously mean he was trading her in for another woman who was willing to tend his house and bear his children. She would have borne his children... or child, she thought, correcting herself. One would probably have been plenty.

"We've got the same outlook on life," he continued.

Louise wasn't listening anymore, but heard him anyway when he said that at least Camilla had understood him when they had talked about it in the kitchen the other night.

"You told Camilla that you were seeing someone else?" Louise exclaimed in surprise.

Peter looked at her, confused. "Of course I didn't. But what we were talking about was making room in our lives for love and our dreams for the future, and doing what feels right."

He paused, as though weighing whether he dared continue.

"You never really accepted... or maybe you just never really understood, how much Camilla really wants to find a man and have another kid."

Now Louise was doubly hurt. Her best friend had never told her she wanted more kids, and had chosen to confide in Peter instead. Now she knew where that barbed comment about her not wanting Camilla to be happy came from. "You should go now," she said, standing. "I don't feel like talking anymore."

She went into the kitchen and stood there a moment, listening to his footsteps as he left the living room. She heard him pull the big suitcase down out of the closet and open a drawer. It felt like a dream. She had no sense of time, no sense of how she was actually feeling. A confused mess outside of time and s.p.a.ce. She sat down at the kitchen table and stared into s.p.a.ce. She wanted to go outside for some fresh air, but the muscles in her body didn't respond when she tried to stand.

Peter stopped in the kitchen doorway. He was holding his dark-brown suitcase in his hand, and suddenly she was afraid he might decide to kiss her good-bye. There was a limit to how much schmalz she was willing to put up with.

He stood for a moment, swaying back and forth, and finally said "I'll call you."

She nodded without a word, and her mind kept reeling even after the door shut behind him. She considered calling Camilla, but she realized that she needed to sit for a while by herself. She wasn't convinced that the whole thing hadn't just been a figment of her imagination. She stood up and got a gla.s.s from the cupboard, reached for the bottle of calvados, and poured herself a very full gla.s.s. She took a swig, swallowed, and drank again until her throat was burning. So long, a.s.shole, she thought. Here she was struggling, compromising, and adapting, and he just goes and throws in the f.u.c.king towel and takes the easy way out. He was off taking care of his own needs, while she was making sacrifices. She took another big swig, pushed her chair back, and marched out into the hallway for her purse. She ran down the stairs and over to the newsstand to buy a pack of Prince Lights.

The whole way back, she kept thinking how pathetic it was to start smoking again, but, really, if getting dumped didn't make it okay, she couldn't f.u.c.king imagine what would. When she got back to the apartment, she poured herself another half gla.s.s of calvados and lit her first cigarette. She waited impatiently for the dizziness to hit her. People had been telling her for years and years how dizzy you get when you haven't smoked in a while. She was looking forward to that sensation now, letting herself be carried away in a soothing fog. But nothing happened. It tasted just the way she remembered, but her body wasn't responding in any discernable way to the nicotine flowing through her. The whole thing with Peter probably short-circuited her pleasure centers or something, she thought rationally.

The ring tone from her cell phone was just audible in the kitchen from the pocket of her jacket in the hallway. She was about to get up, but guessed it was Peter wanting to make sure she was okay, and she didn't have the energy for his concern. She lit another cigarette and finally did get up, driven by an unhealthy curiosity to check the display on her phone to see what she had missed. The call was from a number starting with 35, so it was a land line in Copenhagen. It might have been National Hospital. She contemplated whether it would be wise to call back, considering the frame of mind she was in. She thought about Susanne and sat back down heavily as she pulled up the call log and had the phone dial the last number back.

She was about to cancel the call when she heard Flemming La.r.s.en's voice. She sat for a moment without saying anything, listening to the coroner say, "h.e.l.lo?"

"This is Louise Rick," she said. "Sorry, I was away from the phone."

"I thought you were always at work," Flemming teased.

She was about to say defensively that she was not, but he had already started talking again, apparently not having noticed from the tone of her voice that something was wrong.

"I just finished the autopsy report, which has been signed off on and will be on your desk in the morning. But there was one thing that struck me...."

She listened, but his words washed over her and faded away, and she couldn't manage to stop the sob that forced its way out.

Flemming fell silent abruptly, listening patiently as she began without any preface to apologize and explain in staccato phrases that Peter had just left her. In the same breath, she a.s.sured him that she was okay, although she heard how ridiculous that sounded since there was a little burst of sobs between each sentence.

"I'm coming over now," Flemming said. "Give me your address, and I'll be right there."

She told him where she lived, even though she didn't feel like company. They had good chemistry, but even in her frazzled frame of mind she knew that there was no way their work relations.h.i.+p would benefit from his seeing her at a time like this, when her world was falling to pieces.

She quickly hid her cigarettes in a drawer and drank a gla.s.s of water before brus.h.i.+ng her teeth, in the hopes of getting rid of her tobacco breath before he arrived.

Peter had forgotten his toothbrush and shaving things. She grabbed a big paper bag and started raking all of his things into it. Once she had stashed all that on the back steps, she lightly dabbed some powder on her face and ran her fingers through her thick, dark curls. She pulled her long hair back into a ponytail, annoyed that she hadn't told Flemming not to come. Pull yourself together, she told herself as the intercom beeped. She went over and buzzed him in.

From the depths of the stairwell, she could hear him bounding up the stairs as she stood in her doorway, waiting to receive him.