This Land is no Stranger

by Sarah Hollister

  She again heard the same voice, muttering the same phrase. “America is finished.” This time Brand located the speaker, a muscular man of about thirty years old, wearing a sport jacket with an Olympic patch on it. His bleached blond hair was slicked back above hawkish eyes. He focused his gaze directly on Brand, as if waiting for her acknowledgment.

  “Hans,” another guest said in a cautionary tone.

  Brand rose to the challenge. “I don’t know about America, but all my life I’ve heard people say, ‘New York is over, New York is over,’’’ she said. “But somehow the city keeps reinventing itself. You should see the sidewalks of Brooklyn now, absolutely thick with eager twenty year olds.”

  “Yes, detective, I’ve seen your Brooklyn,” the Hans fellow returned. “Many times.”

  “Sometimes I wish New York really were over. Maybe then planes wouldn’t be dropping out of the sky on us.”

  “Oh, oh,” exclaimed a few of the guests.

  Hans gave a trivializing puff of his lips. “Always 9-11 with you people.”

  The youngest person in the room, a thirteen year old girl somehow related to Ebba, spoke up. “Maybe everyone should stop blaming America for all that’s wrong in the world.”

  “Against youth, there is no argument,” Hans said, holding up his hands in a gesture of mock surrender.

  27.

  At the first chance, Brand fled the party atmosphere. She retrieved her boots and stepped out from a pair of sliding glass doors onto the stone terrace, yielding herself to the frigid embrace of the winter night.

  Something bothered her. Somewhere in the bowels of the NYPD warehouse in Red Hook, Brooklyn, stood a large steel cabinet. Stored within that cabinet were spent bullet samples from every duty gun ever issued to city police.

  Running a forensic ballistics test on a Glock was notoriously tricky. The barrels of the mass-manufactured pistols featured polygonal rifling rather than traditional lands-and-grooves.

  But such tests could be done. And somewhere in Sweden, probably in the neighborhood of the tiny village of Västvall, there were spent bullets from Detective Lieutenant Veronika Brand’s Glock that had lodged in a bloody, snow-bitten corpse. She didn’t even fire the gun. The pink mohawk dude had.

  It was difficult enough to pair ballistics from two bullets fired from the same Glock. The likelihood of a cross-Atlantic match being made was so faint it wasn’t even worth considering. Yet Brand could not stop herself from considering it. An investigation would tie her to the scene in the blizzard. A loose end had been left untied.

  After a few moments gazing upon the star-spangled black of the sky, Brand noticed Lehtonen. The woman stood in the shadows off to the side of the terrace, smoking a cigarette. Brand crossed over to her.

  “Nasty habit,” Lehtonen said. “Lately I have to hide to indulge it.”

  “The villagers will come with torches and pitchforks and hunt all you tobacco fiends down,” Brand said.

  “My wife will,” Lehtonen said. “Ebba believes in rooting out all weakness in whatever guise it assumes.”

  “Well, I have a weakness for weaknesses,” Brand said, moving closer to Lehtonen, who surprised her by slipping an arm through hers.

  “You?” the woman said, offering a puff on the lit cigarette.

  “Jesus, no thanks, one hit would get me started all over again. Quitting nearly killed me the last time.”

  “Yes, I can quit, too—in fact, it’s so easy that I’ve done it countless times, isn’t that what they say?” Smiling, Lehtonen looked sideways at Brand.

  The two women stood silently for as long as the cold would allow, tuned to the stillness. Above them, the bright slash of the Milky Way ended abruptly, its full length obscured by a bank of clouds backlit by a half-starved crescent moon.

  “Who is this arrogant creature who dislikes America so much?” Brand asked.

  “Hans something-or-other. He’s no one, just a wealthy friend of Arvid’s. He heard you were the guest of honor and asked to tag along. To tell you the truth, Veronika, a lot of us have a love-hate relationship with the States, me included.”

  “I’d guess lately more hate than love.”

  “Well, the view from over here is pretty grim. But you might be surprised how many Swedes approve of a rightward swing.”

  Lehtonen carefully stubbed out her smoke, then rose to her feet and pocketed the butt. She extracted a tiny breath mint spray bottle and dosed her mouth with it. “I must maintain my deception,” she said in a dramatic tone.

  Lehtonen went back inside, but Brand didn’t want to return to the fray just yet. The night sky was so stingingly fine, as was the brief taste of loneliness after the claustrophobia of being among people. She wanted to savor the mood for a moment more. She stood with her face upturned, as if the faint starlight would lend her some of its ethereal glow. The celestial fires emanated from millions of years in the past. They were too remote to do anyone any good.

  Brand wondered if the Swedish waters ran too deep for her to understand. It all flowed together: the Vosses, the Romani, the terrible feeling that her detective skills might be abandoning her. She couldn’t begin to figure the puzzle out, and what’s more, was tired of trying.

  What did she have? Fragments, mostly connected to Elin Dalgren. She remembered the look of determination on the old woman’s face, the hard grip of her hand on Veronika’s own. The letter and its revelations about the Dalgren’s secrets, with Elin’s voice crying out to be heard. The uncomfortable feeling that Sanna Dalgren had not wanted her to talk to the old woman. The timing of Elin’s death. A fatal incident in the night, then death in a hospital administered by the Voss family.

  Finally, there had come a gradual, uncertain awakening in herself, a growing sense of familial love. The feeling swirled in amid the ancestral demands made by blood and the dogged persistence of the past—all the burdensome things that Brand had spent years trying to escape.

  The words of the skinhead on the train echoed in her mind: What are you doing here, bitch?

  It’s not too late, she thought. I could turn this visit into a real vacation. Take one of those cheap ferry boats into the Baltic. Go on a tour of Helsinki. Head to Copenhagen. Afterwards, fly home to New York City, tired and happy and all touristed out.

  Her spider-sense tingled as she realized she wasn’t alone. A figure stood nearby in the shadow of a juniper. How long had someone been lurking there?

  “Hello?”

  The figure didn’t move. Brand felt foolish. She thought she might have just greeted a piece of statuary.

  The outline animated and stepped with unsettling quickness toward the terrace. A man, Brand thought. A trespasser. His shock of white hair caught the light from the interior of the house. She saw it was the America-basher, Hans.

  He mounted the steps of the terrace. His fashionable boots made ringing sounds on the cold stone. He proceeded past Brand without acknowledging her. It was odd. Brand concluded that he had been caught out eavesdropping and didn’t want to be confronted.

  A few steps past her, he pulled up short, as if remembering something.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said, employing the same ironic tone he had used inside among the party guests. He turned back to Brand. “You know when Dorothy and Toto and Scarecrow and the others are in the Haunted Forest, just before the girl and the dog are kidnapped by a gang of flying monkeys?”

  He waited as though he actually expected an answer to what was clearly a nonsensical question.

  “You do know what I’m talking about.” A tone of impatience showed in his voice. “All Americans know the fucking Wizard of fucking Oz by heart. It’s in their pop culture hall of fame or something.”

  His accent combined qualities that Brand could not place. Swedish, yes, but British, too? Or American? German?

  “Okay, Detective Brand, who expects immediate answers in all her police interrogations but will not respond to a simple civil question of mine, I will assume you are familiar with the Wizard of O
z.”

  He paused as if to let her get a word in. She stared at him. Hans appeared irritated that Brand wasn’t playing along.

  “What do they see in the Haunted Forest? What do Dorothy and Toto and Scarecrow and Tinman and the Cowardly Lion see? Well, not Toto, since he’s a dog and can’t read. They see a sign. What does that sign say?”

  He leaned toward Brand and extended his hand. At first she thought he was offering to shake hands, but instead he stuck out his forefinger and formed his hand into a pistol shape, pointing at her.

  Brand answered reluctantly. “It points the way and says, ‘Witches Castle, one mile.’”

  Hans simulated pulling the trigger on his hand. “Right on the money, Detective,” he said. “Or maybe I should say ‘right on the monkey.’”

  “Hans, is it?” Brand asked.

  “Did you know the actors performing as the flying monkeys were the same ones that played the Munchkins in Munchkinland? There’s a lesson in there about good and evil, if one cares to learn it.”

  Brand strung the man along, feeling puzzled by his sardonic aggression. “But the ‘Haunted Forest’ business,” she said, “that’s not the part of the sign you want me to remember, is it?”

  “No, Detective, it is not.”

  “There’s something else written down below.”

  “Yes, indeed, there is.” He again cocked his hand, aimed it at Brand’s head and fired off a mimed gunshot. His insolent tone offended her more than the gesture.

  “Take the message to heart, Detective, and stay out of my family’s business,” Hans said, moving as if to return inside.

  “Wait, what? What did you say?”

  He halted. “I said, and I will not repeat it, don’t come near the Voss family again or you will regret it.”

  Brand let the truth sink in. “You’re Hans Voss?”

  But the man disappeared into the house without answering.

  The sign in the Haunted Forest, Brand knew, represented a warning.

  I’d turn back if I were you, it read.

  Ebba stepped out of the house onto the terrace. “Detective Brand?” she called.

  “Yes?” Brand answered, rising to her feet.

  “It’s the oddest thing, but the police are here, some of our own Stockholm police officers. They say they wish to speak to you.”

  Ebba gave a thin smile, displaying her wine-stained teeth. “What’s this about, Veronika?”

  28.

  They let her cool for forty-two minutes, sitting alone in the interview room at the local polisstation. Except for the Judas slot in the door with a Plexiglas pane behind it, the space was windowless.

  Earlier, two uniforms and a kriminalinspektör named Linnéa Beck had marched her out of the dinner party. Ebba’s guests lined up and stared with unconcealed delight, as if they thought the whole thing might be a show put on for their entertainment.

  In front of Lehtonen’s luxurious home a pair of police vehicles had pulled up, a van and a smaller sedan. In the back seat of the sedan sat a white-faced Krister Hammar, peering out of the side window. Brand tried to give him what she thought was a reassuring look but which probably read as a grimace of commiseration. The officers placed Brand in the van and Beck climbed into the front beside the driver.

  Kriminalinspektör Beck treated Brand with pro forma officiousness. No, she was certainly not under arrest. They would simply like to ask a few questions of her down at the station house.

  “Look,” Brand informed her. “I’m an NYPD detective lieutenant with fifteen years on the job.”

  “Yes, Detective Brand,” Beck said. “By now I have often been informed of this fact.”

  “I mean, of course I’ll cooperate,” Brand pleaded. “I can vouch for Mr Hammar, too. Do we really have to be put through this whole business?”

  But they had brought her to the polisstation and held her there. The pace of the process felt agonizingly slow. She recognized the technique. The solitary waiting period represented a way to increase her tension. It was designed to break her resistance.

  Something bothered Brand beyond the obvious awkwardness of the immediate situation. Once again she felt a nagging sense of hidden forces at work. A dynamic existed that she urgently needed to understand. It eluded her, always just out of reach. Some sort of puppet-master worked behind the scenes. When Brand tried to follow the attached strings to see who was manipulating her, the marionette apparatus melted into darkness.

  Finally, a pair of Swedish cops entered the interrogation room. Both were male, both were in plainclothes, and neither one of them was Linnea Beck. The two introduced themselves as Detective Inspectors Edvin Larsson and Vincent Hult. They sat across the table from Brand. Larsson looked too young to carry much weight. They both came off as friendly and spoke perfect English. At first, they seemed not at all interested in the strong arm.

  “Detective Brand,” Hult began.

  “Oh, it’s Veronika, please.”

  “Yes, Veronika,” Hult nodded.

  “I mean, we’re all friends here, right?” Brand attempted a bright smile.

  Hult gave a forced one. Larsson stayed silent and fiddled with note-taking. Brand wondered how differently the interview might have gone down had her duty pistol been somehow involved. She took back her curse of the pink-haired punk for stealing the Glock.

  “What’s this about?” she asked.

  “You indicated to Linnea that you have primarily stayed in the immediate Stockholm area during your visit to Sweden, is that correct?” Hult asked.

  “I made a visit to my family’s homestead in Härjedalen.”

  Hult nodded. His sidekick Larsson scribbled in his notes.

  “So, Härjedalen,” Hult said. “Anywhere else?”

  “No, not really,” Brand fibbed.

  “On your journey to Härjedalen, did you take a detour to a village called Västvall?”

  “No.” The business of police, Brand reminded herself, was to sit around and listen to people lie.

  “You also visited a historical manor house near the small town of Ljusdal, is that right? The incident that occurred there is quite concerning.”

  Brand stayed mute.

  “Where do you stay while here in Sweden, Veronika?”

  “Well, right now I have use of a guest house in a Stockholm suburb,” Brand said. “It’s Täby or Djursholm. As the crow flies, I guess my cousin Lukas Dalgren’s place is fairly near to Stockholm.”

  “Fågelvägen,” Hult murmured to Larsson, which Brand figured was how Swedes said, “as the crow flies.”

  Hult turned back to Brand. “What I want you to help us understand is why you are in Sweden in the first place.”

  “Well, it’s a free country, as we say back home.” Brand didn’t like the guy, and was giving him back a little sand. “You’ve seen my U.S. passport and my NYPD ID. I’m here legally. I didn’t have to swim the Mediterranean or anything.”

  “Please, Veronika,” Hult said, impatient with her.

  “Okay, so the boring truth is, my grandparents emigrated from here,” Brand said. “I have many relatives in the country.”

  “You come to Sweden in the middle of February,” Hult said. “You tell the customs inspectors on entry into the country that your visit is personal, that you are attending a reunion of family. But we know that what you call ‘the boring truth’ is not the entire truth—not the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Isn’t that right?”

  Brand was impressed. The Swedish police definitely did their homework, up to and including reaching out to customs inspectors. “I attended a reunion with my family,” she said. “Many of whom I’ve never met before. This is my first time in Sweden. As I said, many of my ancestors came from here.”

  “But the reunion business seems to be some sort of cover story,” Hult said.

  “Why would you say that?”

  The younger cop, Larsson, came to life. “You’ve been poking around, haven’t you, Veronika? I’m not su
re how far your NYPD credentials will carry you in this country. Those credentials are fugazi, anyway.”

  Brand almost laughed out loud. The reach of American cop slang had spread from countless crime procedurals on television, even unto the interrogation rooms of the Stockholm police.

  Larsson continued. “We’ve been in touch with our police liaison in New York City, and we understand you’ve been suspended from the department. And of course there are many police officers in the NYPD who are corrupt.”

  At that, Brand flared up. “Hey, I’m the cop who puts dirty cops in jail, okay?”

  Hult made a downward motion with his hands, trying to calm the situation. “Everyone realizes you’ve done good work in New York, Veronika. Your many awards speak for you. But here in Sweden you seem intent on digging up dirt on a crime that happened in the far distant past. This incident you have linked to a prominent Swedish family, the Vosses. Am I getting this right? Or do you have something to add?”

  “Well, I’d object to ‘digging up dirt,’ and I know how it looks, Inspector—” Brand began, but the younger cop cut her off.

  “In America,” Larson said, “I think we would ask, ‘What’s up with that’?”

  The phrase sounded comical, pronounced in a Swedish accent. She had come to the happy conclusion that the two cops had nothing concrete, no real evidence linking her and Hammar to the scene at Västvall village. The situation actually offered Brand an opportunity, the chance to discover what—or who—had initiated the process of bringing her in for questioning.

  “My relative, Krister Hammar—” Brand began, but Hult interrupted.

  “—Related to you only by marriage, no? Not a blood relative? Wife deceased?”