And as the cherry on the cake, someone who with more tangible methods amuses himself by throwing stones and placing a cranium—a real-life skull, as Ottosson had expressed it—mounted on a fence post next to the professor’s mailbox.
“This stone-throwing, what do you think about that?” Sammy Nilsson abruptly interrupted the associate professor’s lecture about succulents.
The associate professor was startled. He looked at Sammy Nilsson in a way that expressed a wounded fatigue, as if the police had abused his confidence.
“I don’t think anything,” he said.
“You haven’t seen or heard anything?”
Gregor Johansson shook his head.
“Have you talked with the gardener, Haller? You seem to have a good deal in common,” said Sammy, pointing down toward the man. “He called Ohler vermin, what could he mean by that?”
“No idea,” said the associate professor.
“Have you discussed the professor and the prize with him?”
“Just in passing,” the associate professor answered.
“Do you share that understanding, about Ohler as vermin?”
“If that were the case, I would be very careful about airing such opinions.”
“Wise,” said Sammy Nilsson. “But now we have to be going. Nice to get a little perspective on existence.”
* * *
“What the hell are succulents?” Sammy exclaimed as they were getting in the car.
“What the hell did you mean by being so contrary? He was a friendly old man.”
The throng of journalists was standing in a semicircle in front of Ohler’s steps. On the steps stood the professor. The whole thing resembled a press conference at the White House.
“Yes, old, and perhaps friendly, definitely to us, but I think there’s some shit there. I thought Haller hinted at a few things. He stood surrounded by dirt and a number of stones that he had dug up, did you see that? He also said something about ‘there is more ammunition for anyone who is interested.’ He stank of booze, did you notice that? And he talked about the associate professor as his ‘brother-in-arms,’ what did he mean by that?”
Lindell leaned her head back and closed her eyes and immediately after that her ears. She did not want to hear more about associate professors and skulls. They would write a report, then turn their attention to essentials.
* * *
The essentials proved to be a sixty-year-old garage owner and member of the Home Guard in the Almunge area who had gotten tired of his wife and then of himself.
The wife was tied up with her back to a chopping block in the woodshed, shot once in the head and once in the chest. The walls of the shed were covered with dried blood, brain matter, and bone chips.
The man was on his back a couple of meters outside the woodshed. Half of his skull was missing. By his side was a hunting rifle.
It was a neighbor who found them. He had heard the shots and “immediately understood” that something was wrong.
“It’s to defend his home,” said Sammy Nilsson, kicking at the foundation of a tank that was on the yard.
After the first attack of nausea, he vomited in the woodshed. He had been seized by fury and yelled at the man who was lying at his feet.
Lindell had been forced to pull him away from the dead man.
“We don’t know what happened,” she said.
“He tied her up,” said Sammy.
That she could not deny and therefore did not say anything. She was also nauseated, partly by the sight of the dead, partly from the smell of diesel.
“Let’s move away a little,” she said, taking Sammy by the arm.
They walked in silence. There was not much they could do now, the technicians would have to perform their duties first. Lindell was struck by the dramatic difference between the villa in Kåbo and the farm in Almunge. Ottosson called just when they had left the associate professor and driven up to the main road. One moment among the bigwigs and the next in front of two dead people in a little village in the country, the man obviously unhappy, evil, or crazy, or all three at once. With the woman bound and terrified in the presence of her husband, Lindell thought this was obviously an uncommonly brutal sight that indicated a kind of planning, and she understood Sammy’s rage. But he was too blocked to start reasoning, so she had to do it for herself.
Perhaps he “only” wanted to scare her by tying her up, but then the sequence of events got out of control? But why in the woodshed? Had it started as a silly quarrel? Probably they would never find out. They had not, after a quick check in the house, found any letter or message that might cast the least bit of light on the background to what happened. The only thing they discovered that suggested a drama was a torn-open box of bullets on the kitchen table. Some bullets had rolled onto the floor.
Could it be a double murder? The question had to be asked, even if Lindell realized it was not very likely.
* * *
It took an hour for the technicians to arrive. During that time Sammy and Lindell questioned the neighbors, most of them elderly, who lived closest. They were obviously shocked, the village was small, everyone knew everyone. No one could give a reasonable explanation for the whole thing. As far as the neighbors knew, the man had never before threatened or abused his wife.
“They seemed to be like most folks,” said one of them, who had recently moved into an older, half-dilapidated shack. “I got help from him to fix the roof. He was a real hard worker, rarely allowed himself a break.”
“She was not particularly talkative but thoughtful,” said a very pregnant woman who lived two houses away. “We used to bake together.”
When they left her she was crying uncontrollably and Lindell felt like a villain.
“I think he didn’t have much work after the summer,” the nearest neighbor, a farmer, mentioned. “Maybe he got depressed? We had talked about him helping me with the fertilizing. Now I’ll have to find someone else and it’s not that easy.”
Lindell had experienced this many times before, how people close to the eye of the storm got hung up on everyday details about the dead.
“Depressed” was a word that turned up again and again in Lindell’s thoughts, while they poked around the farm. Fredriksson and Beatrice, who had joined them half an hour before, went through the house. Fredriksson looked moderately amused, he always wanted to be outdoors, but the itching seemed to have stopped. When he disappeared into the house Lindell saw that the hair on the back of his neck was sticky from some yellow-white cream.
All in all, the farm looked a little depressing, careless in some way. Perhaps the season contributed to the impression?
There were no children to notify. According to an uncertain piece of information, the man had a half-sister “up north.” According to the neighbors, the couple otherwise never talked about any relatives.
“If there are any relatives, then they certainly won’t talk about the dead, especially not about the old bastard,” said Sammy, who seemed unusually bitter and restless.
Or the other way around, thought Lindell. Now perhaps the family can really talk rubbish. But she did not say anything so as not to add further fuel to the fire.
On the way home Lindell fell asleep in the car. That was not unusual. She had a talent for dropping off after a period of tension. Others got wound up, Lindell fell asleep.
Sammy woke her before the Gnista roundabout.
“Are you going home or to day care?”
“No, I have to get the bicycle,” said Lindell.
She looked at the clock and determined that she had plenty of time to pick up Erik.
“A day on the job,” she said, as they turned down into the garage under the police station.
Sammy gave her a quick glance and mumbled something.
Sixteen
“Who has access to skulls?”
Sammy Nilsson’s question was tossed out unexpectedly before the morning gathering had formally been opened. All eyes were aimed at
him, the majority very surprised. Yesterday’s incident with Ohler was not the sort of thing they dealt with in Homicide. The newspaper had not revealed what the threats against the professor were, other than that a stone had been thrown at the house.
“Grave diggers,” said Fredriksson.
“Doctors,” Sammy Nilsson answered himself.
“You can’t rule out the associate professor,” said Lindell with a smile.
“The old man is cunning,” said Sammy. “He and that gardener have cooked something up, I’m dead sure of it.”
“And what would that be?” asked Ottosson, who looked amused.
Perhaps he thought it was liberating for a change to make small talk about somewhat less dreadful crimes than murder.
“I don’t know,” said Sammy, “but I think that the gardener threw the stone and the associate professor set out the skull.”
“The criminals are just getting older and older,” said Lindell in a dejected voice.
Sammy smiled and she understood that he had been able to shake off yesterday’s irritation, which had actually been an expression of powerlessness.
“I see,” said Ottosson. “Shall we get started?”
“Is there any alternative?” Fredriksson asked drily.
“Pick mushrooms, maybe,” said Sammy.
Fredriksson’s thoughts shifted immediately to the autumn chanterelles.
Ottosson began the meeting. “Almunge! There is nothing that indicates anything other than murder and then suicide. The deed appears to have been done without premeditation, as it is so nicely called. As Allan already pointed out last evening”—Lindell looked up, had Fredriksson worked overtime?—“the woman was probably hanging up laundry. On the laundry line at the end of the house a number of garments were hanging and in a basket on the ground there were more clothes, damp.”
“Perhaps it was the husband who was hanging laundry?” Pedersén threw out. He was one of the new ones, someone about whom Lindell had not yet formed a clear impression.
“The woman had clothespins stuck in her waistband, but as usual don’t rule anything out,” said Ottosson.
They could rule out most of it, thought Lindell, who was tired of all the clichés, even the ones she made use of.
She felt a kind of nausea creeping up. Perhaps it was the information about the clothespins in the waistband that triggered the reaction? Being murdered in the middle of such an everyday chore, dragged away and tied up to a chopping block, underscored the capriciousness and made it all stand out as even more bestial. “Disloyal” was a word that occurred to her. You don’t murder someone who is hanging up your wash.
Lindell lost herself in thoughts about what Alice Eleonora Sigvardsson was thinking when she was hanging up her blouses, her husband’s underwear and shirts. Did she suspect anything? Had they quarreled that morning?
* * *
Otherwise no new serious crimes had been reported; the fact was that the past few weeks had been unusually calm. It had given them some breathing room and several of the ongoing investigations got more attention and in several cases were closed. The hooligans have taken an early and long fall break, Hill, the other newcomer, wisecracked.
As the meeting continued Lindell was very preoccupied as she listened to what was being said; she was not called on a single time either. From Almunge her thoughts flew back to Gräsö. Before yesterday’s visit it had been several weeks. She almost had a bad conscience for not having thought about Edvard for such a long time, and thereby not about Viola either. It had happened before, during periods with relative harmony in her life, that the memories subsided.
When she and Sammy discussed it, he maintained that the bad conscience was due to the fact that she did not allow herself to be happy. To him Edvard was a dead end, always had been. For a while Ann got the idea that Sammy was jealous, but that was unlikely. Sammy always seemed satisfied with his family life.
Now she had Anders. Since the adventure in Brazil he had changed, was no longer so dead certain. Mostly he stayed at her place; they had never talked about moving in together, but more and more of his things, especially books and CDs, were ending up in her apartment. She actually had nothing against it. It was not the things, wherever they physically were, that were decisive. But she was wary, it was like walking on newly formed ice, a cliché that she never liked before but that she thought described the feeling well. They still had to fumble their way forward.
He was still physically fragile after being badly knifed earlier in the year. Sometimes Ann got the idea that he exaggerated his weakness, that he wanted to be frail and pitiful. Or else the recovery from his mental fragility was delayed. He was not in balance, that was obvious, and Ann was moved by his attempts to sometimes seem stronger than he was in reality.
The experiences in Brazil, first as witness to a murder and then battered by a bus, had left their marks. She also realized that the breakup with the woman he met there had dominated his mood. He said nothing specific but she understood by his evasiveness that he was very upset. It did not come out whether it was he or she who had taken the initiative to separate, even if he hinted that she was the one who had been hurt most. But that could just as well be a way for him to safeguard his vanity. Who wants to be abandoned?
Ann decided not to poke her nose into it. When she realized that he was two-timing her, she kept Billie Holiday’s recording of “Don’t Explain” in her mind: Don’t explain, just come back. That was how desperate she was. Then she had been prepared to swallow a lot. And she did, asked no questions, made no accusations. He was the one who got to determine at what pace the story would be revealed. And fragments were still coming out, piece by piece. But the more time passed, the less urgent the story felt to Ann.
He was with her now, not in Brazil or somewhere else. On the contrary, occasionally he almost got clingy. He offered her warmth and skin. He was considerate, sweet to Erik, who seemingly without difficulty accepted him as his stepfather. They were doing well together. Quarrels were avoided by Anders taking a step back, unimaginable before, as if he wanted to try a new tactic. He was accommodating but maintained his silence as a shield of integrity.
Was she too accommodating? That was something that Görel, her girlfriend, always maintained. Görel wanted to know, she wanted a complete confession, she wanted to see him crawl. When Ann defended herself she was told that she was too submissive. And—this was Görel’s point—this behavior would punish her in the long run. If Anders Brant now stood out as an honest man, there would come a time when his deceitful temperament flared up again, and then Ann would be, if not powerless, then in any event not as well armed. But she could not believe in the image of Anders as a slumbering monster. She herself had acted deceitfully toward Edvard and knew that life could not be lived according to an instruction book with one hundred percent morality and rationality as a guide. Sometimes you got caught. No one else needed to pronounce the punishment, you managed that well enough on your own.
“You have to think about yourself, don’t let yourself be fooled,” Görel said so often that Ann was getting tired of her nagging. Sometimes she got the feeling that her friend preferred an unhappy Ann, a single Ann, an Ann who sought consolation, but that was such a strange conclusion that Ann suppressed it. Why should Görel, who had always supported her over the years, harbor such thoughts?
She had told Anders about Edvard, about her betrayal, and about the long rehabilitation, that was the word she used, to come back, to dare to believe that she would meet another man. She did it without ulterior motives, she didn’t want to make him feel guilty, just give a factual picture of herself and their circumstances.
He had listened patiently, asked a few questions, but after that did not comment on what she said. Even so she sensed he was grateful that she wanted to tell him.
And now Edvard would be on the table again. It was necessary. She had decided to go out to the island and visit Viola before it was too late. If Edvard chose to lie low tha
t was his business, she would steel herself and get through it. There was no other choice. It had been eight years since they were together. It would be silly if she could not see him after such a long time.
It struck her that perhaps he was living with a woman. She felt her cheeks burning. Sammy, who was always attentive, made a gesture with one hand. She did not know how to interpret it, so she just nodded back and tried to look content.
* * *
The meeting was over. Everyone exhaled and left as fast as they could. Only Ottosson lingered as usual, as did Lindell. It was a habit they’d had for a long time, a kind of post-meeting, filled with familiarity. Sometimes it was only about work, other times about private things and then mostly about Ann’s life, but most often it was a mixture.
The others on the squad had accepted these brief conferences, realized that the bond between the chief and Lindell was somewhat special. What made her colleagues feel well-disposed or indulgent to Ann was that she never used her status as favorite to appropriate benefits for herself.
It was just this relationship, their slightly peculiar relationship, that Ann now brought up.
“Who am I going to make small talk with after the end of the year?”
Ottosson smiled, but said nothing. He picked up his papers. They both knew that there was no answer. Instead he picked up another thread.
“I was thinking about this business with the professor. Could it be someone who was wrongly treated once upon a time? He worked at University Hospital, right? Someone who wants to get revenge, who has fumed about it a long time and now when the old man has gotten some notoriety wants to mess with him a little.”
“I think he worked as a researcher. He probably didn’t have much to do with the general public. Seeing patients, performing operations and that. He’s a virologist. Viruses.”
Open Grave: A Mystery Page 13