by Mark Davis
“Ingrid is a university student and our intern,” Lars said. “Believe it or not, the regular park service actually has a grooming code.”
A fat, blonde man in his mid-thirties bounded into the room, breathing heavily.
Lars spoke again, “Colleagues, allow me to introduce Thor Magnusson, lead digital investigator the PST has been kind enough to detail to the park service.”
Thor set down a folder, fished around for something and came up with a remote. He turned, saw the anime screensaver and cringed with embarrassment.
“Ingrid,” he said under his breath.
A few clicks brought up a virtual folder with a title, “digital rettsmedisinsk etterforskning.”
Digital forensic investigation.
“Good morning,” Thor said. “I regret that happier circumstances have not brought us together.”
“Yeah, like fairies and dragons,” Bowie said.
“Or smartasses with thin covers,” Nasrin said, looking straight at Bowie.
Bowie stiffened in his chair and shot Nasrin a cool look as he raised his coffee mug to his mouth. Nasrin smiled at Bowie, then turned to Elizabeth, displaying the satisfied look of a person with a delicious secret barely held.
“We have recovered fifteen devices in all,” Thor said. “Seven people who left behind eight smartphones, two laptops and five smart pads in their rooms. Not a single one of them left behind a suicide letter in their devices, even in draft form. Nor did there appear to be anything unusual in their many email accounts, at least in regard to a planned suicide or unorthodox ideologies.”
“So we have nothing,” Norris said.
“I did not say that,” Thor said. “They all communicated, but used a common ruse favored by terrorists and adulterous generals. They shared a Gmail account into which they deposited messages in draft folders. The drafts were never sent, but I am sure the accounts were shared and the drafts read.”
“But they had to have started with a direct communication, to be led to this point?” Norris asked.
“Yes,” Thor said. “All of their devices and accounts were purchased and signed on to at most six months ago. We should ask their relatives or executors to look for older devices.”
Thor turned to Bowie again.
“Or perhaps we could just ask our American friends to simply ask the NSA to look up the records.”
“I’m a diplo, so signals is not my area of expertise,” Bowie said. “But I do know that recent law makes private phone companies responsible for keeping international records, but they don’t keep them that long.”
“What I don’t get is why they didn’t leave a note for loved ones, for the world?” Norris asked.
“What they left is a collective message,” Elizabeth said. “In the form of performance art, spelled out by seven shoes. What was the name of the account that they shared?”
Thor grimaced. He hit a toggle.
Black letters on a screen read: “Fólkvangr_or [email protected].”
“What is bloody Fólkvangr?” Nasrin asked.
“It is the afterlife for heroes,” Lars replied.
“I thought that was Valhalla,” Nasrin said.
“Half of deserving warriors go to Valhalla, the other half to Fólkvangr,” Lars said. “Fólkvangr is not the realm of Odin, but of Freyja . . . goddess of erotic love, receiver of the slain.”
“Sounds like the better deal,” Nasrin said.
___________
In the morning, Elizabeth took a morning flight back to Stavanger. At the airport, she found the dark-blue armored Volvo and slipped into the front passenger seat. Lars Stenstrom sat behind the wheel, grinning like a man about to go on vacation.
“You really enjoy this,” she said.
“I love to get out into the field,” Lars said.
“And why didn’t you ask Nasrin to join us?”
“You didn’t mention anything to her?”
“No,” Elizabeth said with an edge of irritation, rejecting any implication that politics between inspectors was somehow her responsibility. “I followed all of your instructions to the letter.”
Lars pulled away from the curb and entered the slipstream of traffic.
“So why didn’t you ask her to come along?” Elizabeth asked.
Lars pondered the question as he navigated a roundabout.
“The better question is why I asked you to come along.”
“I’ll bite. So why?”
“We finally found a witness. I need you to evaluate him as I evaluate what he tells us.”
“So who is he?”
“Mountain folk.”
“A Norwegian hillbilly?”
Lars chuckled and then lapsed into a thoughtful silence as he concentrated on the tight curves that led to the backcountry. They retraced the route toward the Pulpit Rock and crossed by ferry, this time no one holding a special spot for them. Lars took a quick turn at speed onto gravel road that cut through thick forest. The forest opened to the Lysefjord, where a forest ranger waited for them in a police boat with a thick rubber siding and two powerful Yamaha engines rumbling at idle.
“After you.”
Lars followed Elizabeth down a short pier and onto the cruiser.
As soon as Lars jumped aboard, the ranger pushed the throttle forward and sent Elizabeth wheeling backward. Lars caught her in his arms and held her closely in the grip of his large hands.
“Are you okay?”
Elizabeth looked up at him and nodded. He grasped her waist and gently eased her to back onto her feet. Lars went to the ranger behind the wheel of the boat and shouted something into the man’s ear. The ranger accepted the reprimand with a brisk nod.
The craft cut across the gray-blue surface of the water. Seen from this vantage point, the cliffs that seemed so sheer and straight from above were now irregular columns and blocks of light granite. The stone walls had the hue of beach sand. White mist that wafted from the forest above, infiltrated the rocks and trees and went to the water line.
Lars smiled at Elizabeth and pointed at something. A waterfall spouted over a cliff high above them and cascaded down the rocks to roil the waters. In the high cliffs, trees jutted out of the rock face like sprigs of parsley.
As they approached the opposite bank, Elizabeth saw Inspector Dahl standing next to a dark blue Range Rover with “Politi” in big block letters, lest anyone imagine that such a gas-devouring beast was used for fun. The ranger cut the engines—taking care to make a slow transition this time—to push the bow of the rubber-bottomed boat onto a gravel beach. Elizabeth rolled up her pants leg and took off her shoes.
“I hope you don’t mind a little wet,” Lars said, offering her hand as she stepped down a metal ladder. She waved him off.
The water was ankle deep and glacially cold.
There was a towel inside the Range Rover, which Elizabeth used to dry her feet and ankles. They buckled into their seats. Inspector Dahl took the wheel and ground up a pitted road of rock and dirt. The gradient was soon so steep it seemed as if they would lose traction and roll back a hundred feet into the water.
The Range Rover leveled off on a narrow roadbed between a wall of granite on one side and a sheer drop no more than two inches from the edge of their tires on the other.
“Next time, can we phone this in?” Elizabeth said.
“Fear of heights?” Lars asked.
“Not so far,” she replied, “but I think Norway might help me cultivate one.”
They rose again. Elizabeth felt her breath catch as the Range Rover slipped again on gravel. Inspector Dahl expertly maneuvered the SUV, letting off the gas and slowly reapplying it to regain traction.
They came to a flat place, a green glade where a house stood just off a granite wall. A carpet of grass covered the roof. In the yard, the boney hoop of a pilot whale’s lower jaw stood upright like a giant croquet wicket. Soccer flags flapped from its serrated teeth. The house was a
rectangle with weathered siding of dark wood. It took a moment for Elizabeth to realize that the antique siding covered a manufactured home.
A face flashed by the window.
“He is here all right,” Inspector Dahl said.
Elizabeth looked to Lars.
“Magnus Norland,” Lars said. “A loner, trapper, with rights to this land that go back farther than anyone can remember.”
“An eccentric?” she asked.
“Eccentric would be kind,” Lars said. “He is, how to say this for our consultant, folkish?”
“Ásatrú,” Dahl added.
“Which is?” Elizabeth asked.
“The old religion, true to the Ása gods” Lars said. “In these backcountry places, the Christian cross has never taken root in this stony soil. When you step out of this car, you find yourself on Odin’s land.”
“Magnus’s wife was Sami, white people who live in tee-pees, much like your Indians,” Dahl added. All Elizabeth could recall about them was a TV documentary about people who lived near the Arctic Circle and raised reindeer.
The door opened and an elfin face, white and weathered, peered out from the shadows. Lars shouted a loud greeting. A liver-spotted hand thrust out into the sunlight to make a welcoming gesture.
As they approached the house, Elizabeth flinched at the odor of decaying flesh. Off to the side, several animal traps hung from a rack. A small skin, like a black blotch, dried on a smaller rack.
The inside of the house was dark and cool. The old man waved but did not shake their hands. He motioned for everyone to sit. He took a chair and lit a cigarette. Elizabeth followed the two inspectors inside. Lars and Dahl sat side by side on a ratty couch. Elizabeth took a seat in a thick chair upholstered in corduroy.
Lars spoke in rapid Norwegian, smiling. Elizabeth could read the sentiments—thank you for allowing us to visit, we are so lucky to have a witness, I appreciate your willingness to talk to us.
The old man lifted a glass from a small table and took a sip of something clear, giving Lars a suspicious look.
Magnus was a small man, with long whitish-gray hair pulled back into a ponytail. He had clear blue eyes and a pointed nose broken by a tracery of red and blue veins. His hands rested gently, palm side up on dirt-stained blue jeans. But his eyes remained alert, as if the outward gentility of this meeting might unexpectedly burst into violence.
Elizabeth guessed he had a gun tucked in the seams of his chair.
Lars lapsed into silence. Water from the kitchen tapped a beat in metronomic time, as if to measure the pauses. Elizabeth looked around the dwelling, first at the steel and plastic and Formica of what had originally been a mobile home, then the rest, which told a less modern story. Caps and coats in the colorful, indigenous patterns of the Sami people were tacked to the walls alongside the skulls of foxes and the antlers of reindeer and a bull moose.
The floor was covered with skins—bears, seals, foxes.
Lars finally broke the silence with questions, got the old man’s answers, and then related them to Elizabeth. Magnus eyed her suspiciously as she listened to Lars’ translations.
How long has it been since Ádá passed?
I’m going on three years. I get lonely and I never see the children. But Ádá visits from time to time to let me know she still waits for me.
How has the hunting been this year?
If it wasn’t for the traps, I’d starve. The occasional grouse. I haven’t felled a moose in a year.
Do you need anything from social services? I can have some people visit?
No, I don’t want any visitors. I am happy to talk to you because you are a ranger and you take care of the land. You keep people away from the sacred places. And you need to know what I saw.
What did you see?
I saw people jump from Hyvlatonnå.
Lars explained to Elizabeth that he used the old Norse name for the Pulpit Rock.
“Were they holding hands?” Elizabeth asked.
The old man’s eyes narrowed with suspicion at the strange English-speaking woman.
Lars said something that seemed to put Magnus at ease.
No, they just jumped in a neat line, all at once.
No one appeared to have been pushed? Lars asked.
Not that I could see.
And you watched them fall?
Yes. They went off together, as I said. Then they began to fall in their own ways. Some tumbled. One man put his hands above his head, put his feet together, to drop through the air fast like a rocket. A fat woman rolled over and over.
Did you hear anything?
Some screams, both men’s and women’s screams. Most hit rocks that veered off the wall on the way down. Those that hit outcroppings went into the channel. The rest bounced off the bottom while the others hit the water like cannon balls, almost at once.
Did you see other witnesses, boats?
No.
Did you see anyone on the Pulpit Rock looking down?
No.
Did you count them?
Six plus one.
Please explain.
The old man took a draw from his glass and gave his visitors that suspicious look again. He took his time, as if trying to decide whether to divulge something.
I saw Freyja.
“Does he mean a real person?” Elizabeth asked.
Lars shook his head at her in a dismissive gesture, cautioning her not to interrupt again.
What was Freyja was doing?
She flew straight above the jumpers, looking down on them with pity as they fell into the water.
You saw the goddess?
I did. I think these poor fools imagined they would go to the meadow-place with her. Freyja only flew above them, never gathering them to her bosom. I am sure she knows that those who choose to die so foolishly surely belong to the kingdom of Hel.
FIVE
The gray trunk of a large ash tree rose out of a stone pit installed in the wooden floors of the old warehouse, now converted to a dining room. The broad branches of the tree and its green fronds towered over the tables and pressed against the opaque glass ceiling twenty feet above. Dark fissures streaked the bark of its massive trunk, making it look as if it were truly as old as the world.
“So what’s with the tree?” Norris asked as a hostess led the group to a table under the limbs of the tree.
“It’s supposed to be Yggdrasil,” Bowie said.
“Yeeg-what?” Norris asked.
“Yggdrasil, the tree that holds up the nine worlds of Nordic legend,” Bowie said. “At its base are the Norns.”
“The whats?”
“Beings the Greeks and Romans called the Fates,” Lars said as they all took a seat. “They are the spinners who weave the destinies of our lives.”
“And the victims sat down here for dinner, where the Norns should be?” Elizabeth asked.
“Because their fates were almost fully spun,” Nasrin said.
She did not look at Lars or Elizabeth when she spoke, but straight ahead as if addressing some unseen diner. Elizabeth could only imagine her reaction when Lars Stenstrom had divulged to Nasrin that they had interviewed a witness without her. Ever since, Nasrin had avoided eye contact with Lars, and only glancing contact with Elizabeth, never smiling. Lars had explained that he didn’t want to overwhelm Magnus Norland with visitors, and absolutely needed Dr. Browne to assess the hermit’s mental condition. It was clear that Lars was also letting Nasrin know her place as a guest in his country.
So Nasrin kept her eyes away from Lars and Elizabeth.
“Tell me something,” Lars turned to Elizabeth. “Just as we were leaving Magnus, you turned at the door and had me ask the old man if he detected any kind of odor when Freyja flew by. Why?”
“The hallucinations of schizophrenics are sometimes attended by olfactory sensations,” Elizabeth said. “He said he didn’t experience any unusual smells.”
&nb
sp; “Just an old man’s flight of fancy?” Nasrin asked, looking at Elizabeth’s direction but slightly above her eyes. “Not that I would have any first-hand impressions of my own.”
“No,” Elizabeth said, “I think he’s just interpreting something he saw.”
“Like what?” Bowie asked. “Lady Gaga?”
“Maybe a bird?” Agent Norris said.
“Or one of the jumpers falling at an odd angle,” Bowie said.
Thor Magnusson arrived late, breathing hard, blonde hair darkened by sweat.
“I am sorry,” Thor said. “I just had to review a few things to be sure.”
“Sure of what?” Nasrin asked.
“The digital forensics,” he said. “We have got them. Almost, I think.”
A young woman with pink hair took their drink orders. Bowie ordered nachos for all to share.
“As you know, they communicated by posting emails into a drafts folder of that Gmail account,” Thor said. “It took me all night, but I was able to trace Fólkvangrorbust to an IP address here in Norway.”
“Do you have a physical destination?” Lars asked.
The waitress arrived and set drinks around the table. They paused their conversation until she was gone.
“Yes, I do,” Thor said, taking a swig from a local microbrew. “It is just outside of Hommelvik.”
“Which is where?” Nasrin asked.
“Just outside of Trondheim. Traces to an open field on public land a few kilometers from a small clubhouse.”
“Clubhouse?” Bowie asked.
“Called Sessrúmnir, the mead hall where Freyja receives the dead,” Thor said. “In the real world, it is the headquarters for the Trondheim division of the Hammers, a biker gang.”
“You have these characters in Norway?” Elizabeth asked.
“A few years back, they went after each other hammer and tong,” Inspector Dahl said. “The Hammers scare even the Bandidos and Hells Angels.”
“Yes,” Lars added, “if by hammers you mean RPGs stolen from Norwegian Army bases, and if by tongs you mean Glock 17s smuggled from Estonia by way of a Russian freighter. Let Inspector Dahl and myself pull together more information about these gangs and we shall convene another meeting within a day.”