"By lobotomizing them?" I asked startled.
Mogens Holst nodded. "They said that they had found a new method. That back in the days when they had done it on psychiatric patients they cut the wrong nerve paths. That was why it went wrong. But these doctors were certain they could do this right and make Denmark known all over the world for this research. Imagine being able to cure criminal teenagers? Imagine how much money the government would save on juvenile prisons and personnel by removing this burden, by pacifying these criminals who didn't contribute anything to our society and make them no longer a threat to ordinary decent people?"
"But what happened to them?" I asked still shocked at how this could have happened less than twenty years ago.
"They became apathetic of course. Some even died from brain damage. But it wasn't spoken about. No one ever missed them. In the system they weren't considered human. They were experiments. Their lives had no value."
I stared at Mogens Holst in shock. I couldn't believe him. I didn't want to believe him. I shook my head.
"This is horrible,” I said. "You have the documentation for all this?"
He nodded with a smile. "I do."
"Could I see it?"
Mogens Holst got up from the couch. He went into another room and then returned shortly after. A huge stack of files and papers landed on the desk in front of me. "You can have it all. Never did me any good. No one will ever believe me again. Not after they destroyed my name. My own wife even turned her back at me. Didn't believe I was right in my mind any longer, she said." Mogens Holst scoffed. "Maybe she was right. Look at me now. I’m a drunk and a lowlife. Nobody cares anymore."
I stared at the piles of paper. I had no idea what to do with this material, with this story. Would the paper run it? Would they dare?
Mogens Holst had put a copy of his book on top of the pile. I took it and read the back. According to the text there had been “many operations performed on children as young as eight years of age, even though their brains were not yet completely developed.”
I leaned back in my chair shocked by this. I couldn't believe that they had actually done this to children. I thought about what we did to them today. Drugging them with all kinds of things if they turned out to be just a little wild or uncontrollable. It seemed that the medical world had always been trying to explain deviant behavior and responding to it with medicine or surgery. These were children we were talking about. Criminals or not. This was not right. It had to be told.
I got up from the chair and grabbed all the files and papers.
"I hope you'll have more luck with this than I had," said Mogens Holst as I walked toward the door. He held it open for me.
I sighed. "I really hope I will too," I said.
CHAPTER 26
I BROKE OUT IN a cold sweat while I drove back towards Karrebaeksminde. The papers and files were in the back seat. This was huge, I thought. This could be the story of my career. This kind of stuff could make or break a career. It was every journalist’s dream to come across material like this that could overthrow a government.
It had to have been the same for Mogens Holst as well back when he discovered this. It must have been the highlight of his career for him, the research, the book everything had to have been so big, and then ... then he was destroyed. Was that going to happen to me too if I chose to write the story? But what could they do to me? Disgrace my name? Discredit my career? Could I do this and not care about my future, about the price I would have to pay?
I wasn't sure. Yet I wasn't sure I could afford not to write this.
I parked the car in my usual parking spot and walked towards the office building. The streets were empty. Deserted, vacant, abandoned. Most of the small shops in the main street were closed down. Only a few remained open even if they knew nobody was going to come. Fear was slowly killing the town. People gave into their fear and stayed home. They only went out when it was absolutely necessary. Like going to work or going to school in the morning. Nobody went out for fun or at night, nobody shopped except for groceries, nobody went out to eat at the restaurants or stayed at the hotels. This was really bad. Everybody kept inside their houses, curtains closed, waiting for the next murder to happen, fearing they would be the next victim. How long was this supposed to go on? How long could the town survive this?
I opened the door and went up the stairs carrying the files and papers in my arms. With great difficulty I managed to open the door to the editorial room by pushing it with my back. Sune came to my rescue.
"Here let me grab some of that," he said and took the papers out of my hands. "What is all this?"
I exhaled and took off my jacket. "I'm not sure," I said. "It might just be the biggest story of my career or it might be the end of it."
I smiled. Then I told him what Mogens Holst had said and what I expected to find in the secret files. Sune and Sara were both shocked.
"So how are you doing here?" I looked at Sara and then at Sune. They had put up a whiteboard in the room and written all over it. I approached it.
"We tried to paint a picture of the three victims by writing down anything we found about them that could have any interest," Sune said and pointed at Susanne Larsen's name that was written on top. "For example we know Susanne Larsen was a mother of two, a boy and a girl, and she was married to a police officer in Naestved. We also know that she worked as a nurse at Naestved Hospital ..."
"What kind of nurse was she?" I asked.
Sune shook his head. "I don't know."
"I need that information too. I need everything. Everything looks great though. Very thorough."
"She was in palliative care," Sara said. "She helped patients who suffered from brain tumors or mental dysfunctions."
"Great. Put it down for me will you?"
Sara wrote it under Susanne Larsen's name. I stared at the whiteboard, studied it. I read where they went to school, where they grew up, about Susanne Larsen's husband and their children, about Anders Hoejmark's love for badminton that later lead to his job as the president of the club, about Linda Nielsen's severe depression that had started as many as twenty years ago and caused her to start overeating and be declared unable to work. I tried all I could but I didn't see any connection. Not an obvious one at least.
I grabbed a chair and stared at the whiteboard for a long time. Sune brought me a cup of coffee that I drank while thinking. All the information the last couple of days was mixed in my head, all the theories, all the thoughts, everything there had been said was twirling around in my head until I had a thought, an idea.
"What if ...?" I said.
Sune and Sara looked closely at me with anticipating eyes like they had expected me to speak a long time ago.
"Let's say that someone knew about this work that they did at Lundegaarden with the criminal children or maybe that person was even a part of it and believed that they could in fact help people with deviant behavior. Help them become normal or at least somewhat pacified and relieved from whatever made them do what they had done, relieved from being evil."
Sune and Sara stared at me with great skepticism.
"Just follow me here," I said. "Keep an open mind. Let's say that this person - who by the way must be out of his mind - but this person wants to keep doing these lobotomies and continue the work they began, maybe even thinking they were working for a good cause. Maybe he lost it recently and suddenly got the idea that he could help or maybe even get rid of people who were somehow wrong or who didn't behave right."
Sune looked like he understood. "You think the killer used to work at Lundegaarden and used to perform these lobotomies?"
I nodded. "It's a wild theory, I know."
"But Susanne Larsen, Anders Hoejmark nor Linda Nielsen were criminals."
"Maybe the killer is not getting rid of criminals but just people displaying morally wrong behavior, morally decadent. You see where I am going?"
Sara sighed. "But how do the victims fit into that?"
"Linda Nielsen was kind of disabled. She was declared unfit to work and could hardly take care of herself. But there wasn't anything really wrong with her physically that she hadn't afflicted upon herself through her depression. So maybe the killer sees it as morally bad behavior. She is a problem for society, she costs money, and she doesn't contribute."
"Just like the young criminals," Sune said.
"Exactly," I continued. "According to Mogens Holst that was the way they saw the children at Lundegaarden, as a burden. Their illness was something that had to be cured. Maybe this person is trying to ’clean up’ if you know what I mean."
"But what about the other two?" Sune asked.
"Susanne Larsen was unfaithful to her husband and not just having an affair like most do in cases of infidelity. She was having S&M - sex with strangers at hotels while her husband knew nothing of it."
"That's bad moral behavior alright," Sune said. "And Anders Hoejmark?"
I shrugged. "Well he was gay. It said so in the police report. People in the club told the police that they all knew he was gay but he was trying to hide it. They also said that there were rumors about him having sex with men in the men's dressing room after closing time, but they were never confirmed."
Sune and Sara looked at me while nodding. "Sounds like we have a plausible theory," Sune said.
"So the killer is someone who used to work at Lundegaarden?" Sara repeated.
"He could be," I answered, "but again he could be someone just inspired by what they did."
"Like Mogens Holst," Sune exclaimed.
I looked at him with surprise. I hadn't thought about that angle. "I don't know about that," I said. "He doesn't seem to be the type. He has more of a sad existence."
"But he knows more about this than anyone else. Plus he is mad at the world for being wronged," Sune argued.
"Plus he is a schizophrenic," I mumbled. "And a drunk." I stared at the whiteboard while all these thoughts ran through my head. There was something here, we were definitely on to something, but I just couldn't quite figure out all the details.
"What do you think, Rebekka?" Sara asked.
"I was thinking about Irene Hoeg," I said.
"The doctor you interviewed about lobotomy. Why are you thinking about her?" Sara asked.
"It was something she said. Like she approved of the use of lobotomy. She said she had done it on one patient back in the seventies and even though the patient ended up like an apathetic vegetable then it was a better life for her than what she had. At least she was relieved of her pain and struggle inside of her."
"I think that you could find several doctors still advocating for these kinds of methods," Sune said. "Sad as it is."
I smiled. "I think so too. Maybe we should try and find out. Our killer might be one of them."
CHAPTER 27
WE FOUND A HANDFUL of people, especially doctors who were known to have advocated the use of lobotomy in the media over the last fifty years. Three of them were already dead and that only left us with two. Irene Hoeg was one of them and also the most prominent, a doctor Arthur Sejr Andersen was the other. But he was eighty-three and lived in a nursing home.
I stared at the list a little resignedly. Sune stood beside me.
"Could it be Irene Hoeg?" he asked. "Could she be the killer?"
"Except that we are looking for a man," I said.
"Why?"
"Because they found semen in Susanne Larsen and Anders Hoejmark was a big guy. The police said he was held down by the throat while the lobotomy was completed," I said.
Sune nodded and sipped his coffee. "Sure but couldn't the semen belong to the lover that Susanne Larsen was with, the one she met up with, and who maybe just fled the scene to not have his identity revealed? Couldn't a very strong woman be able to hold down Anders Hoejmark?"
"Irene Hoeg is a fairly strong and tall woman. Her handshake hurt my hand," I said pensively. "So you're thinking that Susanne Larsen actually met with some other man, someone who was not the killer and then the killer showed up?"
"Yes. Let’s imagine the man she is with is married and has a great job and career. He doesn't want to risk losing anything by coming forward and telling the police what he knows."
"And Brian Poulsen?" I asked and pointed at his name that was written on the whiteboard under suspects.
"Same thing. Knew he was in trouble if they found his videos on the computer and took off."
"But why would Irene Hoeg travel all the way to Karrebaeksminde to commit these killings? Why not do it closer to where she lives?" Sara asked.
"Because that would be too obvious. Too dangerous. The woman is smart and not planning on being caught," I said.
"But why Karrebaeksminde of all places?" Sara asked.
I shrugged. "I don't know." I looked at Sune.
He smiled. "I know what you're thinking," he said. "We need to check the forensic reports again." Sune walked fast towards his computer. "We haven't even looked at Linda Nielsen's yet. Maybe there is something."
"You took the words right out of my mouth. That was precisely what I was thinking," I said. I grabbed a chair and pulled it up next to Sune's.
His fingers danced across the keyboard. Soon he was in the police's database and opened the report on Linda Nielsen's death. The pictures were brutal and we hurried past them assuming they were much like the previous two. Sune scrolled and read the text rapidly. His lips moved as he read.
"There," he said and pointed at the screen.
I looked and felt my heart racing in my chest. They had found blond hair near Linda's body. Long blond hair that they assumed belonged to a woman.
It was all just a very loose theory so far but it kind of stuck with me, with all of us at the paper for the rest of the day. We had no evidence, we had nothing but thoughts and ideas so we couldn’t talk to the police about it yet, but still we couldn't stop thinking about it. I looked at the huge pile of papers I had received from Mogens Holst. I wanted to start reading them, I wanted to be prepared so I could talk to Jens-Ole about running the story, but I couldn't focus, I couldn't concentrate. If it turned out to be Irene Hoeg who was killing these people then who could stop her? Were the police even on to her? Had they investigated her?
Evidence or not I grabbed the phone and called the head of Karrebaeksminde police department.
"I know this will sound weird but have you investigated Dr. Irene Hoeg? She is one of the few doctors in the country who has actually performed a lobotomy and I recently did an interview with her where she clearly stated that she thought it had actually helped people back in the days when they used it. I don't know if there is anything to it, but I just thought ..."
Johannes Lindstroem interrupted me. "Let me just stop you right there," he said. "We have already spoken to the doctor and she has a clear alibi for all three nights when the victims were killed."
"Oh. Okay," I stuttered quite startled.
"Was there anything else?"
"Well I wanted to ask you if it is true that you are considering the possibility that the killer might be a woman, but I think you kind of already answered that."
"I guess I just did. Good day then."
"Good day."
I hung up and looked at Sune. "At least we can now run the story that the police think the killer might be a woman," I said.
I called up Jens-Ole and he was ecstatic. "Write, God damn it. Write the article. We're running it in the morning. 'Lobotomy-killer could be a woman,' I love it. This just gets better and better."
He hung up. I wrote the story and sent it. Afterwards I wrote a shorter version and sent it to the guys doing our on-line newspaper. I looked up the Express' online paper and found nothing like it. We were first again, I thought with satisfaction. First, before Christian Lonstedt and his perfect smile.
Then I went home to Dad and Julie.
I had barely gotten inside of the house and hugged my daughter when the phone rang. Julie gave me one of those “You're a terrible
mother” looks.
"Sorry sweetie, but I better answer this. It might be important." I looked at the display. Private number it said. I answered it.
"Rebekka Franck."
"Christian Lonstedt."
I froze while looking for something clever and bright to say. I was kind of caught off guard here. I felt so foolish, but I actually blushed. I was beginning to wonder if I actually liked this guy. I had no idea why I would. He was insanely annoying, everything about him irritated me, but I was beginning to think that maybe, just maybe he was the type that grew on you. Ever since that evening he had stopped by the paper I realized that there might be more to him than what I first anticipated. His experience in Africa had left an impact on me. I was beginning to suspect that I hadn't given him enough credit in the beginning. I hated to admit it, but I was open for a reevaluation.
"Christian. What can I do for you?" I asked expecting his call to be merely professional. As usual I put up all my guards suspecting that he wanted something from me, that he wanted to pump me for information.