Seven Shoes

by Mark Davis

  ___________

  They circled Fredrikstad and headed west on a one-lane road to a place where the land sloped downward and splayed into jagged fingers of rock. Bowie followed a sandy path down one such peninsula until Lars’ cottage emerged, a wooden clapboard house painted bright red with high sloping roof of dark ceramic tile. It sat on a small rise that overlooked a cove filled with gray-green water that opened to the Oslofjord and the North Sea. A wooden stairway ran down a rocky cliff from the cabin to a boathouse with a flat deck on its roof.

  An elderly woman greeted them at the door. She wore her peasant braid like a crown, a few blond strands intermingling with the gray. Her blue eyes were bright and observant.

  “You must be Elizabeth,” the woman said. “I am Ingunn and you are most welcome. Lars has told me a lot about you.”

  Ingunn gave Bowie a perfunctory smile and invited them into the main room of the cabin. Perhaps twenty people of all ages stood around a long wooden table stacked with cold dishes of sliced salmon and canapes with cubes of white fish, a pot of meatballs and blocks of white and brown cheese ready to be plucked with toothpicks. A large ceramic bowl of berries sat next to jugs of ale and bottles of chilled white wine.

  Mingled among the neighbors, relatives and children were most of the members of the Preikestolen Investigative Group, socializing with the family and friends of Lars and his mother.

  George was engaged in an animated conversation about the existence or non-existence of free will with an elderly man who turned out to be a retired professor of philosophy. Inspector Dahl chatted with some local women, a glass of white wine in hand, looking more relaxed than Elizabeth had ever seen her. Agent Norris nibbled at some cheese in a corner of the room. Nasrin engaged one of Lars’ neighbors in polite conversation, noting Elizabeth’s arrival with a side glance. Ingrid, her eyes narrowed by pot and irony, stood aloof with a young man who sported a Hitler Youth haircut and a robust beard.

  “Elizabeth, welcome,” Lars said, beaming, his two children in tow, as blonde and beautiful in life as they were in the framed photo in his office.

  Lars introduced his children, an eleven-year-old boy named Sven and an eight-year-old girl named Emilie. As Elizabeth made small talk with the children, she noticed a woman watching her closely from across the room. Blonde and pretty, with a pinched nose, the woman was catalog-hip, sporting a leather vest and an ornate silver necklace that looked like an Indian dream catcher. Lars called the woman over and introduced her to Elizabeth. She was his ex-wife, Anita, who introduced her husband, a reedy man who had immigrated from Greece.

  “I am always pleased to meet any new friend of Lars,” Anita said with what seemed a genuine smile. While she talked, Ingunn walked over and put an arm around Anita’s waist as if the woman were still her daughter-in-law, even her child. There was a communal sharing of parentage and bonds in Norway. Divorced or not, Anita was still a member of the family tribe.

  From the way they looked at them, Ingunn and Anita clearly thought Elizabeth and Lars were an item. Their attention began to make her uncomfortable. After a while, Elizabeth feigned interest in the buffet, begged off and circulated around the table.

  “Elizabeth, good to see you off duty,” George said as she speared a meatball. “I hope you relax today, you deserve it.”

  “Good to know that you have off duty moments of your own, George,” Elizabeth said. “You’ve been so busy.”

  If George noticed any dig in that comment, he chose to ignore it.

  “Are you coming for a swim?” he asked.

  A few people were already beginning to depart for the water. Lars had changed into a bathing suit, a towel draped around his shoulders. He waved to her as he led his children outside. Elizabeth popped another meatball in her mouth, ate a square of cheese, then followed George and Lars and his children outside and down the wooden steps to the boathouse.

  “You forgot something,” Bowie said, pulling up next to her on the stairs. He had Elizabeth’s bag with her bathing suit in it. Lobster red patches from the sun were already beginning to show on his white chest.

  Lars and the children led them into the boathouse to an open dock with a small outboard on a lift.

  “I guess I need to change,” Elizabeth said.

  While she spoke, she couldn’t help but marvel at the whorls of blonde hair on Lars’ perfectly formed chest. Lars smiled back and pointed to the structure’s one interior room, a small office with sea charts, framed photos of Lars and his late father, sailing manuals, depth charts and books in Norwegian.

  “I will guard the door,” he said.

  While she changed, Elizabeth noticed many classic books in English—not a mail-order library, but musty old covers, split and decaying, along with a whole shelf on Norse mythology. She pulled some down and found a few first editions. Odd, she hadn’t figured on Lars being a reader of classics or a collector of books. There were hidden depths to this man.

  When she emerged, Lars took a moment to admire her without his customary reserve.

  “You do wonders for a bikini,” Lars said, smiling in a way that had no hint of a leer.

  “Show me the way.”

  He led her to wooden steps that led up to the deck, which the children and Charles Bowie were already using as a diving platform. Bowie cannonballed with a huge splash.

  “There is really only one way to go in,” Lars said with a smile.

  He pivoted, ran across the deck and with a murderous yell leapt into the air and disappeared under blue-gray water.

  Elizabeth looked down. She never cared for heights, not even a mere ten feet above the water. While she was looking down, Dahl brushed by her and dove straight in.

  Ten feet down. A mere split second of falling.

  “What the hell,” she said to herself, walked to the back of the deck and made a running leap.

  The North Sea water, warmed by the hot summer sun in the shallow cove, was cool but not the shocking cold she had expected. Bowie paddled around her and pulled himself out puffing and panting.

  “Come on out,” Lars shouted to her.

  Lars had to be a good hundred feet away, dead in the middle of the cove. The water was feeling warmer, comfortable even, so Elizabeth swam out to him in clean breast strokes.

  She turned back to see Ingrid sitting with her boyfriend on an outcropping to the side of the boathouse, passing a joint back and forth. George surveyed the scene from the top of the deck. His appearance was surprising. He was leaner than she imagined and far more muscular. He went to the back of the deck, bounded forward and made a clean headfirst dive.

  “So why are you marginalizing me?” Elizabeth asked.

  Lars paddled in the water, his blonde hair pasted on his head, his eyes almost squinted shut from the trickling water. Elizabeth couldn’t shake the impression that he looked a bit like a Labrador retriever fetching something in the water.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean George,” she said. “Why did you bring him in while I was away?”

  “I didn’t,” Lars said. “Charles Bowie insisted. George is a consultant on his payroll. I think Bowie’s unhappy with you and wants a second opinion. But I saw no problem signing off since George is a friend of yours.”

  “He is,” Elizabeth said. “But he seems to be horning in on everything I do of late.”

  “I had no idea there was friction between you two,” he said. “When Charlie asked my permission to bring him on board, George himself told me you were fine with it.”

  “He never asked me.”

  Lars took in that news with silence.

  “I want to tell you some things,” she said, “things you should know about.”

  She proceeded to tell Lars about Freyja’s attempt to undermine Max. He asked a few questions. Then she told him about the contact with Freyja the day before. Lars listened to her while he lightly paddled around her. As she spoke, Elizabeth noticed George climbing out
of the water and back into the boathouse.

  “And you don’t want the others to know about Max and his private issues,” Lars said. “I understand your thinking. At the very least, I have an obligation to warn the members of the group that their family members could be at risk.”

  “Fair enough.”

  “And I would like to ask Ingrid to look at your laptop,” he said. “But I agree. This is a delicate thing. We should be very discreet for now. We need you to keep talking to Freyja. Just use your smartphone to record the conversations.”

  A sail rose over the water and sliced across the cove. George was standing on the board of a windsurfer, his back arched, his strong arms straining against the boom.

  “I had forgotten about that,” Lars said. “I am glad to see someone is shaking the dust off of that old thing.”

  George cut across to the bottom of the cove, made an awkward turn with trembling sails that almost deflated, caught a fresh wind and expertly shot across again. After several zigs and zags, he sailed to the center where Lars and Elizabeth were paddling. He released the boom and sail and slid gracefully into the water next to them.

  “I saw this in the boathouse crying out to be used,” George said. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all,” Lars said. “I’m just surprised it still works. I think I tried it only a couple of times before giving up.”

  “I’m impressed, George,” Elizabeth said.

  “I had plenty of practice in the Long Island Sound,” George said. “Elizabeth, you should try it.”

  Such a silly idea. She shook her head.

  “Seriously, I will show you how.”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “This is a slalom board, built for speed, which actually makes it more maneuverable and easy to use.”

  “I’d have to take a lesson first.”

  “This is your lesson. You just climb up on to the board, slide your feet into the straps while I stay in the water with Lars here, the two of us steadying the board. Then as you find your balance, pull the boom until the sail is perpendicular to the wind and take off.”

  “It’s really that simple?”

  “No, you will fall many times before your muscles learn the correct balance. But once you do …”

  Elizabeth slid onto the board in one long, awkward motion. She pulled herself to her knees. There was a bit of wind, made more noticeable by its cooling contact with her wet bikini. With the strong grip of the two men holding the board level, she rose unsteadily to her feet, knees bobbing, and slid her feet into the straps, took hold of the boom and fell backwards into the water with a whoop. She came up spitting water and angry, as if the board had deliberately given her the slip. She tried it again. And again. On her fourth try, the wind caught the sail and Elizabeth shot forward, unsteady on the board but skittering over small waves before losing power and sinking back into the water.

  On the next try, Elizabeth was able to get on the board without anyone’s help. She wobbled and wavered into a turn, then caught a powerful burst of wind that shot her across the cove, skipping over small waves that slapped against the underside of the board.

  It felt magnificent, like flying.

  With time and practice she could master this sport. When George had first invited her, she had been afraid to try, but now she was glad. Mastery was the opposite of fear, a source of inner illumination that disinfected the dark corners of her mind. She kept at it for a good hour, long after George and Lars had paddled back, though she noted that the two men kept a watchful eye on her as they sipped beers at the dock while dangling their legs in the water.

  Elizabeth fell many times, but sliding back on the board had become second nature. A good, brisk wind kept coming from the sea, while the geometry of the cove necessarily kept her runs short. As she got better at turning, Elizabeth learned how to zig and zag from the narrow end of the cove to the opening to the sound and back again.

  While cutting inland, Elizabeth noticed some guests milling around the cabin above, plastic plates and cups in hand. She could go on for hours, but Elizabeth realized that her display was bordering on rudeness. She caught a strong wind that brought her to the boathouse. Bowie had now joined Lars and George, admiring her skill in cutting close to the dock and sliding off the board.

  “You had to have done this before,” Lars said.

  “I’ve always had a knack for such things,” she said. And it was true. Not long after the death of their parents, an aunt had begun taking Elizabeth and Mike snow skiing in Colorado every winter, then water skiing on big lakes in Vermont. Elizabeth had always been a quick study in any sport that involved balancing against wind, water and gravity.

  George Abelman and Charlie Bowie started up the steps in their bathing suits to change into dry clothes in the cabin’s bathroom. Elizabeth started to follow when she realized that her clothes were in the boathouse. She went into the small office and heard Lars outside folding and storing the windsurfer.

  “Do you have a towel around here?” She almost shouted the words, thinking she needed to be loud to be heard through the door.

  “Here,” Lars spoke to her in a soft voice that easily penetrated the wood, sounding as if he were already in the room.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He cracked the door open, reaching one hand in with a beach towel. The door opened a little more. He stared into Elizabeth’s eyes, reading her expression.

  Lars came into the room and softly shut the door while Elizabeth peeled out of her cold bikini and left it in a wet pile on the wooden floor. Lars handed her the towel and Elizabeth dried herself. He shut the blinds, walked over to her and softly ran the towel down her back, over her buttocks, the backs of her legs. He placed his big hands on her bare shoulder.

  Lars slowly turned Elizabeth and kissed her lightly. As they kissed more deeply, he traced his fingers down her side, stroking her ribs with her fingertips, then along her thighs.

  He cupped her breasts, admired them, slipped out of his bathing suit and pulled her to him. Elizabeth felt her soft breasts pressed to his firm chest, felt those whorls of blonde hair brushing her nipples, just like she had imagined, felt his strong grip on her back. She wrapped her legs around his powerful thighs and curled her feet above his ankles. He entered her. She began to move up and down, slowly at first, leaning back at an angle while he held her in a firm grip by the small of her back.

  They didn’t last three minutes. They came together, making more noise than was prudent, hoping no one could hear but unable to stop themselves.

  Elizabeth slid off him, struggled to catch her breath. She found a tissue, then slipped into her clothes.

  “Well, that was not something I had envisioned as part of your morale-building lake outing,” she said.

  Lars laughed as he finished buttoning his short-sleeved shirt.

  “I must have a fetish for windsurfers.”

  “That and a twitter account could get you a following.”

  He came close and gave Elizabeth a kiss.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “We should try this again sometime,” Lars said.

  Walking up the stairs, Elizabeth worried that the people standing around the outside of the house with their drinks and plates full of food would know what had just happened. But they were all deep in conversation, oblivious that Lars and Elizabeth had been alone in the boathouse for a few minutes.

  Only Bowie had noticed something was amiss. He watched them as they came to the last steps, looking right into Elizabeth’s eyes. Leave it to Bowie to have such a canine ability to sniff out her secrets.

  “Everything all squared away in the old boathouse?” he asked.

  Lars ignored him and went inside to get some food.

  “Nothing that will ever concern you,” Elizabeth said.

  NINETEEN

  Elizabeth poured herself a cold Ringnes from the m
ini-fridge, closed the curtains against the afternoon light of an Oslo summer evening and waited for her laptop to boot-up.

  It was 7:47 pm.

  She had showered, dressed and put on makeup, the irony not lost on her that she had spent the day au naturel among colleagues and a new lover, only to make herself presentable for a conversation with a monster. She inserted the thumb drive Ingrid had delivered. As promised, the tracking program took only a minute to load. Elizabeth had to reboot the computer.

  It was 7:52 pm.

  She felt her pulse quicken at the thought of speaking with Freyja, but without a return of the dreads. The day spent in sunshine, Elizabeth’s mastery of the new sport, the sexual release with Lars, all that had unlocked months of tension and somehow banished the possibility that tonight would be lost to the bad feelings. Elizabeth was looking forward to this conversation, to pulling the smug mask from the monster’s face, to make her pay for daring to lure Max into her orbit.

  Elizabeth felt pumped, the hunter’s élan.

  The laptop was back up, fully loaded.

  It was 7:55 pm.

  She took a sip of beer and clicked the Freyja program. Her screen filled with the image of the misty forest, but dully illuminated, not yet active. Elizabeth hit the red ‘record’ button on a smartphone Ingrid had also left, a burner phone with no links to Elizabeth or her various social media addresses. It would give Lars a quick playback. The video and audio would automatically download to Ingrid’s stick for a full record.

  It was 7:58 p.m.

  Who was this freak? Someone with deep technical skills. A psychopath with an appetite for manipulation, who enjoyed passive-aggressive murder, but capable of killing Walleen with a shotgun and Thor with terror.

  Was Freyja a man hiding behind a woman’s face and voice? Passive-aggressive violence argued for a feminine mentality, but not necessarily.

  One thing was certain. Freyja had been deeply wounded. She wanted recompense for some ancient injury or personal injustice. What wound had Freyja suffered that had distorted her to such a degree?