JESSICA PULLS ON a fresh set of shoe protectors, white coveralls, gloves, and a mask. Suddenly being in the house feels unsafe, even though after the most recent incident it has been checked thoroughly. She steps into the living room again, sees that the techs have expanded their evidence gathering and moved on from the table. Maria Koponen is still sitting staunchly in her seat, the same lunatic grin on her face. It looks as if the hostess is the only one who hasn’t gotten the memo about the murder.
Normally, the body would have been zipped in a bag and removed from the scene by now, but apparently there are still too many questions in the air—the kind where finding the answers could be critically impaired by moving the woman’s lifeless body.
“Do we have the slightest idea what happened here?” Jessica asks. She has waved over the tech in charge of the crime scene, this time one she knows for a fact is part of the investigative team. The murderer in disguise has put her on edge.
The tech is a good-looking guy named Harju, and he looks at Jessica reassuringly with his brown eyes. He sighs and takes off his mask. “The very slightest.”
“So basically nothing?”
“The only thing we know for sure is, it wasn’t a break-in. The perp entered through the sliding door in the living room. Then shut it behind him. It wasn’t locked. As a matter of fact, it’s still unlocked.”
“It wasn’t locked . . . ,” Jessica mutters.
“Or else the victim and the perpetrator knew each other and the victim let th—”
“Somehow that’s a little hard to believe. The perp had white coveralls with him and . . .” Jessica steps past Harju and continues: “Whatever he used to create this work of art here.”
“Her face is rock-hard.”
“What?”
“It’s as if it’s been artificially locked into that position. It’s hard to say. . . .”
“Was something injected into her face?” Jessica squints and now notices that the victim’s head is slightly tilted. It must have been this whole time.
“That’s my guess. But we won’t know for sure until after the autopsy.”
“Let me know right away if you come across anything else out of the ordinary.”
“Sure thing.”
“Thanks.” Jessica turns back toward the hall. Down at the far end, the front door is still open, letting in a flood of lights and sounds. The house is cold as hell. Nor do the white canvases with their minimalistic brushstrokes hanging from the white walls give off any warmth; just the opposite—they emphasize the frosty ambience. Jessica walks past the record shelf into the hall and steps into the spacious kitchen for the first time. An incredibly long countertop cut from a single slab of marble runs between the black cabinets and drawers. Jessica touches the cold stone with a rubber-gloved hand. Everything is spotless, gleaming. Poggenpohl. The matrix of marble, expensive wood, appliances, and hardware that serves as the heart of this home has cost twice the annual salary of the average police officer. Jessica knows, because the kitchen in her apartment is almost identical. It’s the apple of her eye and one of the dozens of reasons she could never invite her colleagues to her place. To the place where she really lives.
Jessica allows her gaze to slide from the west-facing windows past the fireplace toward the bookshelf, which holds a huge collection of stories and ideas bound between covers. Her first impression is that the literary offering appears astonishingly one-sided. The same name is repeated on the spine of every single volume. The books diverge from one another in terms of size and color, but every single one has been penned by the same man. Roger Koponen. Upon closer inspection, Jessica realizes that the abundance is not due to the author’s prolificacy. Most of the books are translations. Witch Hunt, Häxjakt, Hexenjagd, Caccias alle streghe. Jessica knows Koponen’s thrillers have found an international readership. That is what has made all of this possible for the Koponens: the luxurious waterfront home and contemporary comforts, including a kitchen that costs as much as a good-sized German sedan. Jessica feels a sharp pain at her temple, as if reminding her that it’s not her job to ponder what built the couple’s life together, but what tore it apart just a moment ago.
There’s a click from the fridge as the compressor automatically starts up, and a low hum fills the kitchen. Jessica picks an English-language volume resting at eye level and studies the cover. The image of a woman in black bound at the stake and the Gothic-script words arcing over it—Witch Hunt—look like a heavy-metal poster to her. Jessica flips the book over. Over 2 million copies sold worldwide. She pictures the Finnish paperback sitting on her own dresser. A friend gave it to her as a present years ago, but it has remained unread due to inertia and lack of time, as well as some sort of bias Jessica harbors against fiction, the ingrained idea that when you read, you should always be learning something new and useful, that stories welling up from someone’s imagination are a waste of time in this hectic world.
Jessica’s fingertips are sweating inside her rubber gloves. A serial killer . . . going after witches. Jessica doesn’t fully understand why she has gotten stuck on the back cover and the plot summary there. A moment later, she flips the book back over and stares at the picture on the front cover. The book thunks to the floor. Jessica doesn’t drop it on purpose; it slips from her grip as she starts scanning the other printings of the book. Japanese, Polish, Cyrillic characters. It looks as if every publisher in every country has chosen a different cover image for their edition, but almost every single one portrays a suffering witch. The exceptions are the few featuring nearly identical wintry seascapes of the Gulf of Finland, frozen white. Nordic noir. But most of them are of a witch being burned at the stake. Flames. A young woman dressed in black, writhing in agony. The cover of Hexenjagd, the German edition, shows some sort of torture rack to which the victim is bound by the wrists and ankles. In her finery. And when Jessica now, for the first time, looks more closely at the woman on Hexenjagd, she notices that what she a moment earlier interpreted as agony is the most monstrous grin imaginable. There’s a lunacy to the smile, a forced smugness. Jessica can feel her pulse in her ears, the rush of blood.
Erne answers his phone, and it takes Jessica a moment to realize that during those few seconds she has instinctively called her boss’ number.
“Jessica? Has tech—”
Jessica can hear her shortness of breath as she interrupts: “Listen. Have you read Koponen’s books?”
“Can’t say that I—”
“Goddamn it, Erne. It looks like the killer has.”