15
Joona goes down the hall to the door from which Siri removed the handle. The key is still in the lock. He closes his eyes a moment and then walks into the room. Its completely silent and fully lit, and the heated air is filled with the smell of blood and urine. Joona concentrates on breathing and in a moment he begins to distinguish other smells: damp wood, sweaty sheets, deodorant. The hot metal of the floodlights makes a pinging sound.
Joona does not move. He takes a long look at the body on the bed and lets each detail sink in, even though hed much rather turn around and head for the fresh air of the forest.
Blood is all over the floor and splashed on the bolted-down furniture and the faded pictures of Bible scenes on the walls. It has spattered the ceiling and all the way to the toilet in the washroom, which has no door. A skinny girl, barely into puberty, is lying on the bed. Shes on her back wearing only a pair of white cotton panties. Her hands are over her face. Her elbows protect her breasts, her legs are straight, and her feet are crossed at the ankles.
Joona can feel his heart beating and the pulse throbbing in his temples.
He forces himself to look, register, and think.
The girls face is hidden as if she were afraid, as if she did not want to see her killer.
Before the girl was arranged on the bed, she had been hit repeatedly on her head and forehead by a blunt object. Her skull is smashed in.
Such a young girl; she must have been terrified. What chain of events had brought her to this home for troubled girls, to this room? Perhaps her parents or her foster parents couldnt cope anymore. Perhaps theyd needed help and brought her here to be safe.
Joona takes in every grisly detail until he can absorb no more. He closes his eyes and thinks about his daughters face and the stone set over a grave thats not hers. Then he opens his eyes and continues his investigation.
Everything indicates the victim was sitting on the chair next to the small table when the suspect attacked her. Joona tries to figure out the sequence of events that caused the blood to spatter in this pattern. He knows that each drop of blood, flying through the air, forms a sphere with a diameter of about five millimeters. If the drop is smaller, it means that the blood was traveling at such high speed it split into smaller drops.
He stands on two protective mats in front of the table; most likely the spot where the killer stood just a few hours earlier. The girl would have been sitting on the chair on the other side of the table. Joona follows the spatter pattern with his eyes. He leans back to trace a high arc on the walls. The weapon must have been swung back to gain momentum, and each time, as its direction changed slightly for the next blow, blood was flung off in a backward trail.
Joona has already spent more time on this crime scene than most inspectors would, yet he knows hes not through yet. He steps over again to the girl on the bed. He notes her pierced navel, the lipstick stain on the glass by her bed, the scar, possibly from the removal of a birthmark, under her right breast. He sees the hair on her shins and a yellowed bruise on her thigh.
Joona leans over her and feels slight warmth still rising from her naked skin. He takes a closer look at her hands. Theres nothing under her nails. She didnt scratch her assailant.
He steps to one side and examines her body once more: her white skin, her hands over her face, her crossed ankles. There is almost no blood on her body at all. Only her pillow is drenched. Her panties are white. Her skin is clean.
Joona looks around the room. Behind the door is a small shelf with two hooks. On the floor beneath the shelf is a pair of sports shoes with white socks balled inside. A faded pair of jeans, a black sweatshirt, and a denim jacket hang from one of the hooks. On the shelf, theres a small white bra.
Joona does not touch the clothes. They do not appear to be bloody. She had most likely undressed and hung up her clothes before she was killed.
But why is her body so clean? Something must have protected her. But what? Theres nothing else in the room.
16
Joona walks back outside into the sunshine. Hes puzzled. Such terrible violence was done to this young girl, but her body was left as pure as a sea-washed stone.
Gunnarsson had warned him that the level of violence was intense, and it was certainly forceful, extremely so, but not aggressive in the sense that her killer lost control. The blows were purposeful and were meant to kill, but in all other respects her body was treated with care.
Gunnarsson is sitting on the hood of his Mercedes, talking on his cell phone.
Unlike almost everything else, a murder investigation does not descend into chaos if left to itself. In most cases, a solution makes itself known eventually. But Joona has never expected a case to solve itself or trusted that order will eventually prevail.
He does know that the killer almost always knows the victim. Often the murderer will turn himself in to the police and confess a short time later. Joona never counts on this, either.