The Postcard Killers

    “Actually, I was,” Dessie said, standing up.

    She got hold of a towel and grappled with it to pull it around her with one hand, then took the cordless phone out through the kitchen and into the living room.

    “How are things with you? You sounded so down when I last spoke to you.”

    Dessie slumped onto the sofa and looked out at the harbor. It was still gorgeous; at least that never changed.

    “Everything got a bit much in the end,” she muttered.

    “Is it Jacob?”

    Unable to stop herself any longer, Dessie started to cry.

    “Sorry,” she sniffled into the phone. “Sorry, I…”

    “You fell for him hard, didn’t you?”

    Gabriella sounded neither angry nor disappointed, but more like a good friend now.

    Dessie took a deep breath.

    “I suppose so,” she said.

    There was a moment’s silence.

    “Things don’t always work out as you hope,” Gabriella said, so quietly that her words were almost inaudible.

    “I know,” Dessie whispered. “Sorry.”

    Gabriella laughed.

    “That took its time,” she said.

    “I know,” Dessie repeated.

    Silence again.

    “What’s happening today?” Dessie asked, to break the silence more than anything else.

    “The Rudolphs have announced that they’re checking out of the Grand at lunchtime. Not a moment too soon, if you ask me.”

    Dessie bit her lip. “Do you really think they’re innocent?” she asked.

    “There’s nothing to link them to the murders,” Gabriella said. “No forensic evidence, no witnesses, no confessions, no murder weapons…”

    “So who did it? Sell me on a new explanation,” Dessie said. “Who are the real Postcard Killers, then?”

    Before Gabriella could answer, the doorbell rang.

    What the -?

    Who could it be now? A reporter who still hadn’t given up?

    She had no peephole and no safety chain.

    “Hang on a moment while I get the door,” Dessie said, going out to the hall and unlocking the door.

    She opened it cautiously, then suddenly she couldn’t breathe.

    “I’ll call you later,” she said into the phone and hung up on Gabriella.

Chapter 116

    JACOB WAS ALMOST AS crumpled-looking and unshaven as he had been the first time he stood outside Dessie’s door.

    She took a great leap into his arms, holding him t ight, tight, tight, as though she never meant to let go, kissing him hard and letting her hands roam inside his checkered flannel shirt.

    “Dessie,” Jacob whispered into her hair. “We’re standing in the stairwell and you’re not wearing any clothes.”

    Her towel had fallen to the floor. She kicked it into the apartment and pulled him into the front hallway. The dirty duffel bag ended up under the telephone table, his jeans by the door, his shirt and T-shirt by the radiator. They made it as far as the door to the living room before they collapsed to the floor. She fell into his bright blue eyes and felt him pushing inside her. The world spun and she closed her eyes, straining her head back against the wooden floor when she came.

    “Jeezuz,” Jacob said. “I guess that means you’re happy to see me!”

    “Just you wait,” she said, nipping his earlobe with her teeth. They stumbled into the bedroom. Dessie pushed him onto the bed and began to explore every inch of his body. She used her fingers, hair, and tongue, tasting and licking and caressing.

    “Oh, god!” he panted. “What are you doing to me?”

    “I’m just happy to see you,” Dessie said. “What are you doing to me?”

    Then she sat astride him.

    She moved gently above him, deep and intense, forcing him to calm down, slow down. It gave her a chance to catch up, and when she felt the rush coming, she let go completely. He seemed to lose several seconds when he came, but she forced him to continue for another minute or so until she came as well.

    Then she fell into his arms and passed out.

Chapter 117

    DESSIE OPENED HER EYES and looked deep into his bright blue ones. They crackled with a warmth that left her breathless. And more confused than ever.

    “You’re here,” she whispered. “It wasn’t a dream. I’m so glad. I’m happy.”

    He laughed. His teeth were white, a bit crooked. His hair was sweaty, sticking out in every direction. He sank back down on the bed and pulled her to him.

    “Why did you come back?” she asked.

    He kissed her and then grew suddenly serious.

    “Several reasons,” he said. “You were the most important one.”

    She hit him playfully on the shoulder with her fist.

    “Liar,” she said.

    “How did you make out in Denmark and Norway?” he asked. She told him about the grotesque murders in the hotel in Copenhagen, about the mutilation of the bodies and the fact that the woman had probably been raped. They had found bruises and scratches on the inside of her thighs, and the semen in her vagina wasn’t her husband’s. It didn’t seem to her like the Rudolphs’ work.

    She went on to tell him about the motor home death scene at the campsite outside Oslo, how neither the bodies nor the letters had been discovered because the reporter had been on vacation, and how the bodies had been arranged to look like Munch’s The Scream.

    “How did you get on in America?” she asked.

    He gave her a summary of his investigations, telling her that the Rudolphs came from an extremely privileged background. That Sylvia had found their parents murdered when she was thirteen years old. That their guardian, Jonathan Blython, had embezzled their inheritance and been found dead with his throat cut. That Mac’s girlfriend Sandra Schulman - whom Sylvia was jealous of - had disappeared after a visit to the Rudolphs’ home. That the twins had set up an experimental art group, the Society of Limitless Art, and been expelled from UCLA because of a public act of incest.

    “A public act of incest?” Dessie said.

    “They called the work Taboo. The two of them made love in an exhibition hall.”

    “They really are mad,” Dessie said, pulling him to her once more.

Chapter 118

    AFTERWARD, THEY SAT IN bed and ate an improvised lunch. Jacob was finishing one of her microwaved