The Fire Witness (13 page)

Joona puts the report down on the desk. He knows that it will be several weeks before the lab has the test results. Without that information, the crime scene investigators have assumed that both Elisabet and Miranda were killed with the hammer.

But Miranda was killed by a rock.

Why was she killed by a rock when Vicky had a hammer?

Joona looks carefully at every photograph sent with the report. There is Miranda, lying on the bed, her skin as pale as porcelain, her ankles crossed, a small bruise on her leg, a tiny jewel in her belly button, her hands over her face.

He puts himself in the mind of the killer, as he usually does, and forces himself to see each action, each frightening choice, as absolutely necessary: the simplest or the best solution right that minute.

It’s unlikely that the killer thought this murder bestial or appalling. It could have been rational or even enticing.

Sometimes the killer can’t see beyond one blow at a time. He needs to strike just this one blow—he justifies just this one blow—and there is no thought of the next until the need for it comes over him like a wave. Time is warped, and the murder can seem epic, starting with the first blow and ending years later with the last, although in reality it might take no more than thirty seconds.

The evidence points to Vicky Bennet. Everyone believes she killed both Elisabet and Miranda, and yet no one believes that she is capable, physically or mentally, of murder.

Every human being is capable of murder
, Joona thinks. He puts the report back in Gunnarsson’s folder.
We see this in our dreams and our fantasies. Everyone is violent inside, but most people have tamed and caged their inner beast.

Joona gets up from the desk just seconds before Gunnarsson arrives. He hangs up his wrinkled coat and goes into the cafeteria. When he comes out with a cup of coffee in his hand and sees Joona, he breaks into a grin.

“Aren’t they missing you in Stockholm yet?”

“Not yet,” Joona says.

Gunnarsson searches his jacket for his cigarettes and turns to the woman at the computer.

“All reports go directly to me.”

“Yes,” she says, but she doesn’t look up.

Gunnarsson mumbles to himself and fishes out a cigarette and lighter.

“How did the interview with Daniel Grim go?” asks Joona.

“Fine, not that it’s any of your business. But I had to be damned careful.”

“What did he know about Vicky?”

“Nothing the police can use.”

“Did you ask about Dennis?”

“That doctor was on my ass like the man’s mother and cut off questioning.”

Gunnarsson pats his pockets, not noticing he’s holding a cigarette.

“I want the report from Holger Jalmert as soon as it comes in,” Joona says. “I also want the forensic examination results and—”

“Get the fuck out of my sandbox,” says Gunnarsson. He smiles widely at the woman, but falters when he sees Joona’s serious, steely gaze.

“You have no idea how to find Vicky Bennet and the boy,” Joona says. “And you have no idea how to proceed with the investigation.”

“I’m waiting for tips from the public,” Gunnarsson says. “There’s always someone who’s seen something.”

44

That morning, Flora woke up before her alarm clock went off. Hans-Gunnar needed breakfast in bed at eight fifteen sharp. Once he got up, Flora aired out his room and made his bed, while Ewa sat in a chair, dressed in yellow sweatpants and a skin-colored bra, keeping an eye on Flora. She got up to check that the sheet was completely smooth and that the corners were tucked in precisely. The crocheted bedcover needed to hang evenly on each side of the bed. Flora had to remake the bed before it passed Ewa’s inspection.

Now it’s lunchtime. Flora returns home with groceries as well as cigarettes for Hans-Gunnar. She hands him the change and waits while he examines the receipt.

“Goddamn, that cheese was expensive,” he says.

“You told me to be sure to buy cheddar,” Flora says.

“Not if it’s this damned expensive. You should realize you need to buy a different kind if this one is too expensive.”

“I’m sorry. I thought—”

Flora is stopped by a powerful blow to the side of her head. She’s knocked to her knees and her ear begins to ring. Her cheek is burning. Hans-Gunner stands over her, staring, until she gets up.

“You said cheddar,” Ewa says from the sofa. “You said cheddar or nothing, so it’s not her fault.”

Hans-Gunnar mutters that they’re both idiots and goes out onto the balcony to smoke. Flora puts away the groceries, then goes into the maid’s room and sits on the bed. She touches her cheek and thinks that she’s tired of Hans-Gunnar’s punches. There are days when he hits her more than once. She can tell when he’s working up a head of steam because he keeps looking at her, and normally he ignores her. The worst thing is not the blows but the way he looks at her and breathes afterward.

He never hit her when she was a child. In those days, he worked and was almost never home. She remembers once his showing her different countries on the globe he kept in his bedroom.

She can hear Ewa and Hans-Gunnar leave the apartment. Flora looks over at the glass horse-and-carriage on her dresser. It was a gift from one of her teachers. In one of the dresser drawers there’s an old toy from her childhood, a bright blue Smurf with blond hair and high-heeled shoes. In the middle drawer is a pile of pressed handkerchiefs. Flora gets up and opens the drawer, shifts the handkerchiefs, and takes out an elegant green dress, which she bought at the beginning of the summer at the Salvation Army store. She never wears it except in her room, but she likes to try it on whenever Ewa and Hans-Gunnar are out.

She’s buttoning it up when she hears voices coming from the kitchen. The radio is on. She walks out to turn it off and notices that Ewa and Hans-Gunnar snacked on cake before they left. There are crumbs on the floor by the pantry. They’ve left a glass of strawberry juice on the counter by the sink. It’s half full. The bottle is still out as well.

Flora gets a dishrag, washes the glass, then wipes up the crumbs from the floor.

There’s a news report on the radio about a murder in northern Sweden. A young girl has been found dead in a youth home for girls.

Flora rinses out the dishrag and hangs it on the faucet.

The police are refusing to comment, but a reporter has tracked down a few of the girls who’d been living at the home and the girls are being interviewed live.

“I wanted to see what was going on, so I pushed ahead of the other girls,” says one girl. “I couldn’t see much because the others pulled me away from the door. I screamed for a bit, but then I realized it didn’t matter much.”

Flora picks up the bottle of strawberry juice and heads to the refrigerator.

“Can you tell us what you saw?”

“Yes, I saw Miranda and she was lying on the bed, like this, just like this, see?”

Flora stops to listen.

“Her eyes were closed?” asks the reporter.

“No, no, like this, with her hands in front of her face—”

“You’re such a fucking liar,” another girl’s voice breaks in.

Flora hears a crash. She glances down and sees she’s dropped the bottle. Her feet are wet. Her stomach suddenly flips and she barely makes it to the toilet before she throws up.

45

A woman with a German accent is discussing fall recipes when Flora gets back to the kitchen. She cleans up the mess of glass and juice and stands for a while, staring at her cold white hands. Then she walks into the hallway to call the police.

Flora listens to the crackle on the line before the first signal.

“Police,” says a woman with a tired voice.

“Yes, hi, my name is Flora Hansen and I—”

“Just a second, I didn’t catch that.”

“All right.” Flora starts over. “My name is Flora Hansen. I want to leave a tip about the murdered girl in Sundsvall.”

There’s a moment of silence and then the same tired voice says, “What do you want to tell us?”

“Do you pay for tips?” asks Flora.

“No, sorry.”

“But I … I saw the dead girl.”

“Are you saying that you were present when the girl was killed?”

“I’m a psychic,” says Flora in her most mysterious voice. “I can contact the dead. I saw everything, but I need to get paid to remember things better.”

“You can contact the dead. Is that it?”

“The girl held her hands in front of her face.”

“The headlines say that already.” The policewoman sounds impatient.

Flora feels her heart shrink from shame. She feels sick. She hadn’t planned what to say, but she realizes she should have said something else. It was already front-page news in the tabloids stacked at the grocery store when she was buying food and cigarettes for Hans-Gunnar.

“I didn’t know,” she whispers. “I can only tell you what I see. I’ve seen other things that you might want to pay for.”

“As I said, we don’t pay.”

“I saw the murder weapon,” she says. “Maybe you think you’ve found the murder weapon, but you haven’t. It’s not the right one. I saw—”

“Do you know that it is against the law to call the police without cause?” the policewoman interrupts. “It’s actually a criminal offense. I don’t mean to sound angry, but you’ve been taking up my time when someone with real information could be trying to get through.”

Flora is about to tell the policewoman about the murder weapon when she hears a click. She looks at the phone for a moment; then she dials the number again.

46

The Church of Sweden has loaned Pia Abrahamsson a temporary apartment in Sundsvall in a large wooden house filled with furniture designed by Carl Malmsten and Bruno Mathsson. The deacons, who come by with groceries for her, keep urging her to talk to one of the other Lutheran pastors, but Pia can’t bring herself to do it.

She’s been driving her rented car up and down Highway 86 the entire day, going through all the small villages and along all the timber roads. Several times she’s run into police officers, who keep telling her to go home.

It’s night now and she’s lying on the bed in this strange house, fully dressed, and staring at the ceiling. She has barely slept since Dante disappeared. She keeps hearing him cry. He’s frightened and keeps begging to go home.

Her cell phone rings. She reaches for it and looks at the number before turning off the ringer. It was her parents. They call all the time.

Pia gets up, puts on her jacket, and leaves. There’s a taste of blood in her mouth. She gets into the rental car and begins to drive. She has to find Dante.
What if he’s in a ditch at the side of the road? What if the girl just left him in the woods?

The road is dark and empty. It appears that everyone is asleep. She tries to peer through the mist beyond her headlights.

She drives to the logging road where her car was stolen. She sits there for a while, clutching the steering wheel to stop herself from shaking. Then she turns around and drives back to Indal. She drives slowly past a preschool and turns at the next street, Solgårdsvägen. The houses she passes are all quiet, their windows dark. She sees something move under a trampoline and stops. She gets out and pushes through a row of roses to get to the front yard, the thorns tearing at her legs. She reaches the trampoline and a cat darts out from underneath.

She turns toward the house, her heart racing.

“Dante?” she cries. “Dante! Where are you? Mamma’s here!”

Lights go on inside the house. Pia runs across the lawn to the next house and rings the bell.

“Dante!” she screams as loud as she can. She hammers on the door then abruptly heads to the shed.

She runs from house to house, calling for her son, pounding on closed garage doors, opening the doors to playhouses, pushing her way through hedges, and finally through a ditch until she finds herself back on Indalsvägen.

A car races up behind her and screeches to a stop. Pia starts running but trips, landing on all fours. She rolls onto her back, blinking back tears. A policewoman hurries up to her.

“Are you all right?”

The policewoman helps Pia to her feet.

“Have you found him?” asks Pia.

A second police officer comes up and says that they’ll drive her home.

“Dante is afraid of the dark,” Pia says. Her voice is hoarse. “I’m his mother, but I haven’t been patient enough with him. He comes into my bedroom at night, and I make him go back to bed. He just stands there in his pajamas, scared, and I just—”

“Where did you park your car?” asks the policewoman as she takes Pia’s arm.

“Leave me alone!” Pia screeches. “I have to find him!” She jerks free and slaps the woman’s face. The two officers grab her and force her, screaming, facedown onto the asphalt. She thrashes against their hold, scraping her chin, but they’ve pulled her arms behind her. She starts to weep as helplessly as a child.

47

Joona Linna is driving along a beautiful stretch of road between lush meadows and glittering lakes, wondering why there are no witnesses. No one seems to know anything about Vicky Bennet, and no one saw a thing. There are no witnesses. He puzzles over this until he arrives at a white stone house. There’s a lemon tree in a huge pot on the veranda. He rings the doorbell, waits a moment, and then walks around to the back.

Nathan Pollock is sitting at a table beneath an apple tree. He has a cast on one leg.

“Nathan?”

The thin man twists around, shading his eyes with a hand, and smiles in surprise.

“Joona Linna, as I live and breathe!”

Nathan’s a member of the National Criminal Investigation Department, a group of six experts who help both the national and the county police with difficult homicide cases. He has long silver hair that is tied in a thin ponytail and hangs over one shoulder, and he’s dressed in black pants and a loosely knitted sweater.

“Joona, I’m really sorry about the internal investigation. I shouldn’t have tried to stop you from seeing the Brigade.”

“It was my decision to handle it the way I did,” Joona says. He sits down.