James Patterson - Postcard killers

He couldn't imagine a worse scenario than these two kil ers walking free.

As if it weren't bad enough that they had kil ed and humiliated their victims, they'd be able to stand there laughing at everyone afterward.

He had to stop himself from kicking over a motorcycle leaning against the wal.

"See you tomorrow," Dessie said, walking past him with her bike helmet in her hand.

"Wait up," Jacob said instinctively, holding his hand out toward her.

"Hold on…"

She stopped, surprised.

He looked at her, his mouth open, apparently not knowing what to say next.

Don't go, I can't stand being alone anymore?

I can't go back to my prison cel at the hostel. Not tonight?

They're laughing at me, can't you hear them laughing at me?

"Jacob," the journalist said, walking over to him. "What's wrong? I mean, I know what's wrong in a particular sense, but what's wrong?"

He made an effort to breathe normal y.

"There are… a few things I've been wondering about. Have you got a couple of minutes?"

She hesitated.

"It won't take long," he said. "You've got to eat anyway, haven't you? I'l pay tonight. I'l even make an effort to be civil."

"I'm so exhausted. I need to go home. We can get something along the way."

They headed off down toward the Central Station side by side.

"What does it mean that the Rudolphs are being held according to Swedish law?" Jacob asked.

"The prosecutor can hold them for up to three days."

"Can they post bail?"

"No, we don't have that sort of system here. Have you ever eaten a flatbread rol?"

"A what?"

They stopped at a little kiosk sel ing hot dogs and hamburgers. Dessie ordered something in her incomprehensible language and let him pay for whatever it was.

Gradual y the solid panic inside him started to let go and open up some.

"Here you are," Dessie said.

She handed him a sort of pancake fil ed with mashed potato, hamburger dressing, gril ed hot dog, chopped dil pickle, onion, mustard, ketchup, and prawn mayonnaise, and al wrapped in foil.

"Jeezuz," he said.

"Just eat," Dessie said. "It's real y good."

"I thought you didn't eat meat," Jacob said.

She looked at him in surprise.

"How'd you know that?"

He took a deep breath and tried to relax his shoulders.

"Just something I noticed, I guess. What do you think of the Rudolphs?

Are they our Postcard Kil ers?"

"Probably," she said. "Mine's vegetarian, by the way."

They sat on the bench inside a bus shelter and ate the sticky rol s. Jacob, who considered himself an expert in junk food, had to admit she was right: it was real y good.

He wolfed it down and thought he might even have another 98 hot-dog-withmashed-potatoes thing.

Dessie Larsson had a calming effect on him. He'd known that almost from the beginning, but he'd never felt it more than he did right now.

He looked at this woman next to him in the yel ow glow of the streetlights.

She was actual y very beautiful without being conspicuously pretty. Her profile was classical y clean and simple. She didn't seem to wear any makeup at al, not even mascara.

"What makes you think they're guilty?" he asked, studying her reaction.

She glanced at him and wiped her mouth with a napkin.

"The bodies," she said. "We know they're arranged as works of art, and the Rudolphs are art students. I don't know, but there's something there, in that mix of art and reality. Also, I don't believe them, especial y her."

He threw the foil wrapping and the smal remains of mashed potato into the bus shelter's trash bin.

"What do you mean, 'that mix of art and reality'? Either it's art or it's reality, right?"

Dessie gave him a serious look.

"It's not unusual for art students to blend them together. We had several cases like that a year or so ago.

"First there was a girl who faked a nervous breakdown in a psychiatric ward as part of her degree show for the Art School. She had the resources of a whole ward focused on her for an entire night. Anyone who was sick or real y suicidal had to wait because of her act."

"You're kidding," Jacob said.

"Nope. Then we had a guy who smashed up a car on the subway. He covered it in black graffiti and broke several windows. He filmed the whole thing and cal ed it 'Territorial Pissing.' Believe it or not, it was exhibited in an art show. The cost to repair the car was one hundred thousand kronor."

"And I thought we had a monopoly on crazies in the States," Jacob said, looking at his watch. "Speaking of the States, there are a few things I have to check on there. Do you know where I can get hold of a computer?"

She looked at him, her eyes large and green.

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

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 stunning view.

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?"

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.