Naturally, there was a microscopic possibility that this was all coincidental, that the Kentucky Killer had been at Newark Airport not to flee the country but only to look for a new victim; that poor Lars-Erik Hassel had canceled his trip all on his own and had thrown his ticket away; and that just after that, a completely unrelated man with a fake passport had popped up with a last-minute booking. The combination of all these things, however, verged on the unbelievable. There was no real doubt that the Kentucky Killer had come to Sweden. The only question was why. FBI agent Ray Larner’s more exhaustive report had come in. According to the timetable, the plane had taken off from Newark at 18:20 local time. At 17:03 a man who called himself Lars-Erik Hassel had called and canceled his ticket, and at 17:08 an Edwin Reynolds had managed to get the extra ticket; thus he had waited five risky minutes so he wouldn’t attract attention. Around midnight a janitor had made the macabre discovery in a cleaning closet—just under two hours before the plane would land in Sweden.
