James Patterson - Postcard killers

It wasn't very big, maybe twenty by sixteen, he guessed. Several of the other hotel rooms had been bigger, but this was stil a break from the norm. No other crime scene had been anywhere as elegant as this, but that was just a superficial difference. There was something else here, something that made this murder different from al the others, but he couldn't put his finger on what it was.

The medical officer arrived and Jacob stepped out into the corridor to make room for him.

He noted that there was a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door.

Then he left the scene of the crime. There was nothing else he could do here.

By lunchtime, security had been stepped up in al public places in the Stockholm region that were frequented by tourists, and especial y by young people.

Al available personnel had been sent out to look for anyone resembling the composite picture from the clerk at NK, or any of the people on the security recordings from the Museum of Modern Art and the pawnbroker's on Kungsholmstorg.

When a preliminary blood test showed that the Dutch couple had smoked marijuana just before they died, sniffer dogs were brought in from around the country to join in the search.

Throughout Stockholm, young people fifteen and over were asked to empty their bags, purses, and knapsacks.

Most of them did as they were asked without protest. Those who refused were arrested.

Dessie was standing in Gabriel a's office, looking out across Kronoberg Park.

Four uniformed police officers and a large Alsatian dog had blocked one of the entrances to the park, a popular shortcut for people heading for the beach or the shops and underground station on Fridhemsplan. Picnic baskets, bags of swimming gear, and expensive attache cases were al careful y checked without any distinction between them.

The sight ought to have made her feel more secure, but she simply felt guilty.

Jacob came into the room with three plastic wrappers containing sandwiches he had found in a vending machine somewhere.

"Where's Gabriel a?"

"She went down to the video suite to get the recordings from the Grand,"

Dessie said, col apsing onto a chair.

Jacob tore open one of the packets and with a healthy appetite took a large bite of the bread and tuna plus mayonnaise. Dessie looked at him and cringed.

"How can you eat?" she asked. "Doesn't al the violence you see ever affect you?"

"Of course it does," Jacob said, wiping his chin with the back of his hand.

"I was just thinking about how sick these murders are. But it won't help the Dutch couple if I faint from low blood sugar."

Dessie leaned her face down into her hands. "I shouldn't have written that 86 bloody letter."

Jacob carried on chewing.

"I thought we'd gotten past that."

She had her cel phone out.

"And now it's started," she said. "Just as I thought it would."

"What has?" Jacob wondered.

"I'm getting cal s from the trade press, asking why I'm doing the police's work for them."

Jacob gestured with his hand toward the pictures of the dead couple in the hotel room.

"That's your reality," he said. "What you're talking about is pretentious bul shit."

"Exactly," she said. "And what if I'm the one who made that reality happen?"

He groaned.

"It's true," she said in a low voice. "You said so yourself. They've broken their pattern – they've kil ed again in the same city. If I hadn't let myself be persuaded, this Dutch couple would stil be alive."

"You don't know that," Jacob said. "And if they hadn't died, other young people would have, in some other city."

She took her hands away from her face.

"What do you mean? That the Dutch couple were sacrificed to a noble cause? What does your lot usual y cal it, col ateral damage?"

The American wiped his fingers on his jeans. His expression had grown dark.

"I never think like that," he said. "The Dutch couple's deaths were a tragedy. But you have to lay the blame where it belongs. You didn't kil them, and neither did I. Those bastards on the recordings did that, and we're soon going to catch them. Right here in Stockholm. It ends here."

The suspects from the museum of Modern Art were identified almost immediately on the security recordings from the Grand Hotel. They appeared on four different film files: two from the lobby and two from the corridor on the fourth floor.

The fair-haired man and the dark-haired woman were caught on camera in the hotel lobby at 2:17 on the afternoon of June 15.

They were with a couple who were quickly identified as Peter Visser and Nienke van Mourik.

The four of them disappeared together into an elevator.

Two minutes later al four reappeared on another recording, in the corridor outside the Dutch couple's room on the fourth floor. They al went into room 418 and the door closed.

Forty-three minutes later, the fair-haired man and the dark-haired woman came out into the corridor again.

After another two minutes, they passed the reception desk and left the hotel.

The detectives who had been out to Mil esgarden came back with results as wel.

A woman who worked as a gardener thought she recognized the fairhaired man. She had noticed him as he walked around with a woman in the sculpture garden. At first glance she thought it was the actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

The recordings from the exhibit rooms at Mil esgarden were requisitioned and were now being checked down in the basement.

Prosecutor Evert Ridderwal had signed an arrest warrant in the pair's absence.

"This is completely incredible," Gabriel a said excitedly. She was walking up and down in Mats Duval 's office, two red spots flushing her cheeks.

Jacob was staring at prints made from the recordings from the Grand Hotel, tearing at his hair.

Something was fundamental y wrong here. Was he the only one who saw it?

Why had the kil ers suddenly dropped al safety precautions?

Why were they showing themselves so openly?

It was too easy.

"We've got them now," Evert Ridderwal said happily. "They'l never get away. I don't see how they can."

Even Mats Duval looked pleased.

"It's just a matter of time before they're arrested," he agreed.

Jacob looked through the pictures again. Both the fair-haired man and the dark-haired woman were clearly visible in al the pictures. There was no doubt that they would be recognized. A national alert had been put out for the couple.

Interpol would be releasing these same pictures international y within half an hour. Every police patrol in the Stockholm region had already received the printouts.

Sara Hoglund came into the room.

"We've released their pictures to the media. They ought to be up on their websites in a few minutes."

Mats Duval turned to his computer and quickly logged into Aftonposten's website.

"Sometimes they're real y quick," he said, turning the screen toward the others.

The headline was in a size usual y reserved for world wars and Swedish victories in the ice hockey world championships. 88 Police Suspects: These Are the POSTCARD KILLERS."

Underneath was a picture of the fair-haired man and the dark-haired woman.

The square outside Stockholm's central Station was fil ed with police, their dogs, and cordons.

Mac was walking slowly toward the train terminal's main entrance with his arm around Sylvia's shoulders. They could hear the beeping and crackling voices of police radios wherever they went.

Two long-haired boys were picked up with their back pockets ful of grass just a few meters ahead of them. What idiots!

"Sorry, guys," Sylvia said.

No one thought to stop the couple.

No one asked to look in their bags, because they didn't have any.