Another Time, Another Life

by Leif G. W. Persson

  “And fish was served at the dinner they were treated to,” said Holt.

  “Of course,” said Mattei. “There was fish as an appetizer—salted West Coast cod on a bed of rucola—and fish and vegetables as an entrée. It was flounder, by the way, with oven-baked root vegetables and lime dressing. Here’s the menu,” said Mattei, handing over a thin plastic folder.

  “Fish as an appetizer and fish and vegetables as an entrée,” Holt repeated.

  “Yes, it was almost only women at the dinner, so that was probably why,” said Mattei. “It actually sounds really good. And Stein was there, as I said, and she ate.”

  “Yes, I heard you say that,” said Holt, “and it—”

  “Although on the other hand she declined the snack later,” Mattei interrupted.

  “How do you know that?” asked Holt with surprise.

  “She’s crossed off the list,” said Mattei. “They had an early dinner at six o’clock,” said Mattei, “and there were eleven different participants listed of which one is attorney Helena Stein. But then cheese and fruit and red wine were served as a kind of evening snack at ten o’clock, and seven of them signed up for that. The others had to go home, I guess to take care of the kids, and one of the seven who signed up was Helena Stein.”

  “But then her name is crossed out?” Holt clarified. For her own sake, she wasn’t going to get anything turned around.

  “Yes,” said Mattei, “and I think she must have declined at the last minute.”

  “I do too,” said Holt slowly.

  “She must have been in a hurry if she was going to kill Eriksson at eight o’clock,” Mattei observed in a most unsentimental manner.

  Fifteen minutes later Martinez called Holt and reported that her contact at the tech squad had called and wanted to share his findings regarding the hand towel, provided they could come to see him at the tech squad of course.

  Nice to get to move a little, thought Holt, who was not accustomed to running investigations from a desk. If anyone had asked her before this strange story got going in earnest, she would certainly have said that solving a case sitting behind a desk was an impossibility. You conquered out in the field—every police officer worth the name knew that. She had never been part of an investigation that had moved with such speed and vigor while she sat in front of her PC or at her desk. We have a breakthrough, and soon we’ll be basking in police department glory. Assuming that Johansson doesn’t decide to take the credit, of course.

  “Sit down, girls, and make yourselves at home,” said the colleague at tech, who had both a beer belly and an old-fashioned, courteous manner.

  “Thanks,” said Holt, although she actually wanted to say something else.

  “Well … let’s see now,” said their technician, pushing up his glasses on his forehead and taking out his copy of the report from the forensic lab, which was now covered with his own notes. “It’s rather amusing to be sitting here with three female colleagues in my office—”

  “It’s nice that you think so,” said Holt neutrally, because she was still a chief inspector. She wanted to say something before Martinez could blurt out something less appropriate.

  “Yes, considering the conclusions that I’ve drawn regarding the finds that our colleagues in Linköping SCL secured on the hand towel in question,” the colleague continued, looking shrewd.

  “I don’t really understand,” said Holt.

  “I’ll get to that,” said the colleague with a sober expression. “So we have vegetable and animal oils, esters, vegetable fat in solid form, traces of wax plus three different coloring agents, and in addition …”

  “What he means is that the chemical stuff they found on the hand towel comes from an ordinary lipstick,” said Mattei innocently.

  The meeting with the colleague from the tech squad had been brief, and in the corridor outside his office Martinez had embraced an embarrassed Mattei and kissed her right on the mouth. Then all three, giggling happily, returned to their project room.

  “I had no idea you knew that kind of chemical hocus-pocus too,” said Holt, looking at Mattei. Johansson can eat his heart out, she thought. Little Mattei will soon be doing turns around him.

  “I don’t,” Mattei objected. “But I did run it on the computer. There are standard programs for searching chemical finds. This one in particular is a crib sheet I swiped from the FBI.”

  “This is completely insane,” said Martinez happily. “Did you see the bastard’s expression? It’s an ordinary lipstick,” Martinez imitated. “I thought our old colleague was going to freak out.”

  “Oh well,” Mattei objected. “We shouldn’t be unfair. He actually has pulled out both the color of the lipstick and the most likely brand. Dark cherry red, cerise, high quality, expensive, probably French manufacture, and in any event not American, because their health laws prohibit the use of one of the coloring components. Probably Lancôme bought in France and not intended for export,” Mattei stated with the help of the technician’s handwritten notes.

  And regardless of the price, it was hardly something that the blonde Jolanta would use, thought Holt, who to be on the safe side also intended to ask the cleaning lady about it.

  “I think it’s high time we have a chat with our esteemed boss,” said Holt. “What do you think about that?”

  Holt had to have her conversation with Johansson without the company of her closest coworkers, because both Mattei and Martinez decided they had other, better things to do.

  “Shoot,” said Johansson. He leaned back in his chair and nodded encouragingly at his female chief inspector and assistant chief detective, who recounted the status of the investigation in less than five minutes.

  “So, that’s the situation,” Holt concluded. And what do we do now? she wondered.

  “It’s starting to lean toward our needing to have a talk with Ms. Stein, I’m afraid,” said Johansson.

  “Isn’t it a little too early?” Holt objected.

  “Will we get much further then?” asked Johansson. “Wouldn’t it be perfect if we could get her to deny that she ever set foot in Eriksson’s apartment?” Regardless of the fact that this is not a murder investigation we’re involved in, he thought, and besides, his best friend Bo Jarnebring and a few hand-picked colleagues of his from homicide in Stockholm could take care of that work. Nothing could be better than to solve this in such a fashion, he thought.

  “I understand how you’re thinking,” said Holt. “The risk is that then she’ll suddenly remember that sometime before—but she’s not sure which day it was—she happened to stop by Eriksson’s by pure coincidence. Perhaps because she saw her cousin Tischler and he was the one who suggested it. And I can imagine that he’d be willing to swear to that.”

  “Yes,” said Johansson, “but she’s going to think of that explanation sooner or later no matter what, if this gets serious.” And at least then she will have talked with her attorney, he thought.

  “You’re looking for an opportunity to be rid of the whole case and send it down to Stockholm,” said Holt. Say that you aren’t, she thought.

  “Yes,” said Johansson seriously, “I actually am, because this is starting to look suspiciously like something that shouldn’t be on our table anymore. But I’ve also realized that you really, really want to have a talk with Stein, so I’m willing to discuss the matter.”

  “Then I have an idea,” said Holt.

  As soon as Holt had left, Johansson told his secretary that under no circumstances did he want to be disturbed. Then he ordered coffee and a much too large bag of Danish pastries from a nearby bakery, and because his wife was traveling for work he had the whole afternoon and evening to himself to go through the crime scene investigation from Eriksson’s apartment and the autopsy report in peace and quiet.

  When he got up from his desk a few hours later to stretch his legs, he was completely convinced that he knew what had gone on down to the slightest detail when Kjell Göran Eriksson was murdered almost ten
and a half years ago.

  Oh shit, thought Lars Martin Johansson, who had never really been able to come to terms with the experience of holding another person’s entire existence in his hands. Maybe I could call Jarnie. After all, he was the one who found Eriksson, he thought, and the mere idea made his mood feel lighter.

  “The murder of Kjell Eriksson,” said Johansson. “Do you remember it?”

  “I was the one who found him, so I guess I remember a few things,” Jarnebring answered. “Bäckström got to play investigation leader and Wiijnbladh was of course the way he was—so the fact that it went the way it did probably isn’t so strange.”

  “A poorly run investigation,” said Johansson, and this was more a statement than a question.

  “Does Dolly Parton sleep on her back? Does Pinocchio have a wooden dick?” Jarnebring asked. “True, I hoped you might treat me to dinner, but it’s clear … if you’ve cleared up a ten-year-old murder for us I might as well treat myself to a hot dog on the way home.”

  “It doesn’t have to be that bad,” said Johansson. “I’ve already reserved a table for us.”

  “Sounds good,” said Jarnebring. “My wife is forewarned and I’ve got permission. So there’s only one thing I’m wondering about.”

  “I’m listening,” said Johansson.

  “Why is SePo suddenly interested in Eriksson? I mean, if you’ve found out that he was spying for the Russians then perhaps you’re a bit late, considering the state of both Eriksson and the Russians.”

  “I’ve thought about that as a matter of fact,” said Johansson. “And I can tell you about it, but then I’ll have to ask you to sign a bunch of papers first.”

  “Then I think we’ll forget about that,” said Jarnebring, grinning. “Just so we get out of here at some point.”

  “Good,” said Johansson. “Then I thought I’d ask you to look at this picture,” he continued, bringing up an image on the overhead projector in his conference room, which showed Kjell Eriksson lying dead on the floor in his own living room.

  “Damn, the things you’ve got in this place,” said Jarnebring with involuntary admiration in his voice. “And here I sit, an ordinary, lousy country cop, in my worn-out shoes and my ragged old detective jacket.”

  “Which you paid for yourself,” Johansson observed.

  “Life isn’t fair,” said Jarnebring, slowly shaking his head. “I recognize the picture. It must be one of Wiijnbladh’s old pictures.”

  “Does this agree with your own recollection?” asked Johansson.

  It was a picture of Eriksson’s living room that had been taken from the door between the hall and the living room. The couch was located a few yards out from the short wall running toward the kitchen, and the door into the kitchen was diagonally behind. The overturned coffee table was flanked on either side by an antique armchair and an amply proportioned wingback chair. Squeezed between the couch and the coffee table was Eriksson, lying on his stomach in his own blood.

  “Yes,” said Jarnebring. “It looks the way I remember it. Are you going to tell me what happened before he ended up there?”

  “I thought we could discuss that,” said Johansson.

  “I’m listening,” said Jarnebring.

  “Eriksson is sitting on the couch having a drink with his back toward the door to the kitchen. He has no idea what’s going to happen before it happens. The perpetrator comes out from the kitchen and stabs him in the back while he’s sitting down. When the perpetrator pulls the knife out of Eriksson’s back, blood gushes out of the wound onto the upper edge of the back of the couch. Those are the stains you see here,” said Johansson, clicking to an enlargement of the couch, showing the top side of the back of the couch and half a dozen closely spattered bloodstains the size of rice grains.

  “I don’t recognize this enlargement,” said Jarnebring. “I haven’t seen it before.”

  “That’s ’cause our technicians developed it, but the original is Wiijnbladh’s,” said Johansson.

  “What are you saying?” Jarnebring sighed. “Why didn’t Wiijnbladh ever do that?”

  “If you look at the victim’s left shirt sleeve,” Johansson continued, clicking to the next enlargement, which showed Eriksson lying on his stomach on the floor with his arms along the sides of his body, “then you see that he has blood on the shirt sleeve right above the cuff, approximately where he dragged his shirt sleeve across the wound in his back to feel it.”

  “On the other hand I do recall that we talked about this, and for once colleague Bäckström and I were in agreement,” said Jarnebring. “Eriksson didn’t realize at first what had happened, so he dragged his free arm over the place on his back that had just been stabbed—he was holding his toddy glass in his right hand—and when he realized what had happened, he went crazy and started to raise Cain. Did you read the interview with the neighbor lady?”

  “Yes,” said Johansson. “But what does he do next?”

  “Then he seems to have moved around a bit,” said Jarnebring vaguely.

  “Seen from the kitchen, with the eyes of the perpetrator, Eriksson is sitting to the right on the couch when the perpetrator comes into the living room,” Johansson said. “Closest to the kitchen door where the perpetrator comes from.”

  “Even I get that,” said Jarnebring. “It’s apparent from the location of the bloodstains on the back of the couch that Eriksson was sitting there when he was stabbed.”

  “But nonetheless he first moved to the left between the couch and the coffee table,” said Johansson.

  “Are you sure of that?” Jarnebring objected. “That’s not the way he’s lying. He’s lying with his head to the right, facing toward the hall. Personally I get the idea he got up, started to raise Cain, and then just folded over—headlong right where he was sitting—he’d been bleeding like a stuck pig so it must have gone fast.”

  “No,” said Johansson, “it probably didn’t go quite that fast, because first he took a few steps to the left between the couch and the coffee table, then he turned and went back the way he came, still moving along between the couch and the coffee table. When he was back to the starting point he fell down, pulling the coffee table over as he dropped, and the toddy glass he had put down on the table fell to the floor.”

  “This sounds serious, Lars,” said Jarnebring, grinning. “I’m almost getting the idea you were there when it happened.”

  “No, but it’s enough to look at this to realize how he moved,” said Johansson, clicking to an enlargement of the blood traces on the floor. “While he was moving to the left, blood from his wound was splashing on the floor, and he stepped in the blood when he turned in place and moved back to the right.”

  “When I look at that, yes,” said Jarnebring, nodding at Johansson’s enlargement. “But when we sat and stared at Wiijnbladh’s original, it just looked like the end of the night shift at Enskede slaughterhouse. A fucking lot of blood everywhere.”

  “So why did he move in that way?” asked Johansson.

  “The simple explanation is that he was trying to get out of reach of the perpetrator, I guess,” said Jarnebring. “The perpetrator was still standing at the right end of the couch where Eriksson had been sitting when he was stabbed. When Eriksson moved away from the perpetrator, that is, to the left, the perpetrator rounded the coffee table on the other side and Eriksson fled back to the right—and then he fell.”

  “I think it was just the opposite,” said Johansson. “True, I’ll buy the location and movements of the perpetrator in the room—on the other side of the coffee table and the armchairs—and first to the left and then back to the right again—but otherwise you’re wrong.”

  “Since I’m the one who’s playing the fool here, naturally I wonder what you mean,” said Jarnebring.

  “What I mean is that it was Eriksson who was trying to get hold of the perpetrator,” said Johansson. “It was Eriksson who was following the perpetrator, and the perpetrator who was backing up. Not the other way around.�
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  “The hell it was,” Jarnebring objected. “Not that I met Eriksson while he was alive, but I still got the distinct impression that he was a real little coward.”

  “But not this time,” said Johansson, “because he was not physically afraid of this particular perpetrator.”

  “I see,” said Jarnebring, smiling broadly. “You’re onto colleague Bäckström’s line, that after all it was a little fairy we’re searching for.”

  “No,” said Johansson. “It’s someone else we’re looking for.”

  “Someone that Eriksson knew, someone he wasn’t afraid of, but instead someone with whom even Eriksson could feel big and strong,” said Jarnebring.

  “Yes,” said Johansson. Unfortunately that’s the way it is, he thought.

  “Damn, Lars, say what you want about old unsolved murders, but they’re good for the appetite,” Jarnebring said an hour later as they sat at their usual table at Johansson’s regular place and had just been served a baked sandwich of Parma ham, mozzarella, basil, and tomato as a little prelude to the lamb filet that would come when it was time to get serious.

  “Too bad it has to be an ordinary Tuesday,” said Johansson vaguely.

  “You’re thinking of a small one,” said Jarnebring.

  “What makes you think that?” Johansson asked evasively.

  “I’m a cop,” said Jarnebring. “I’ve been a cop my whole adult life—and I’ve known you just as long—and because Pia is out of town anyway and I am free myself, I get the idea that you, in your dark Norrland way, are talking about a little shot, despite the fact that it’s only Tuesday.”

  “What the hell should we do?” said Johansson hesitantly. It is only Tuesday after all, he thought.