Berg still gripped the wheel with both hands. ‘It doesn’t have to,’ he said, craning his neck to look up and down the street. ‘This establishment has quite a reputation. They say you can get your hands on anything in there: drugs, weapons, sex. Rumor has it my newly disgraced cousin had connections to this bar.’
‘Do they know you here?’ Lauren asked.
Berg shook his head, giving her that mischievous smile of his. ‘I’ve never been in the place. For some strange reason, the crime that happens inside doesn’t get reported to cops like me.’
‘It’s a good thing me and Matt aren’t a cop like you then,’ Lauren said.
‘Maybe so,’ Berg laughed. ‘Maybe so.’
For the third time that day, they exited their vehicle as a trio with Berg in the lead, Lauren on his heels and Matt bringing up the rear. They weren’t in a hurry. The street was empty, the door to the bar was closed, and the unimpressive bouncer was fiddling with his phone.
The sound of a car engine revving angrily behind them filled the street. A squeal of tires and the roar of the engine froze them in place for a half-second, like deer, in the middle of the road.
A pair of headlights blazed out of the darkness. Berg and Lauren managed to throw themselves over the curb, both falling face down on the sidewalk. Lauren’s glasses flew off her face and skittered over the ice. One pace behind them, Matt was not so lucky. The vehicle hit him squarely on his left side, sending him flying ten feet forward. He landed on the pavement with a sickening thunk.
The SUV didn’t stop. It barreled around the corner and out of sight.
Reaching out and snatching her glasses, Lauren stuck the dripping spectacles on her nose as she scrambled over the ice and snow on the curb and into the street to get to Matt. He was lying on his right side, softly moaning.
‘Stay with him!’ Berg jumped up and ran across the road to their vehicle. Lauren could still smell the exhaust fumes from the SUV as he hopped in and gave chase.
She knelt by Matt’s side, the snow soaking into the knees of her black pants. ‘Matt? Can you hear me?’ Lauren didn’t want to move him for fear of a head injury.
The skinny doorman ran over and knelt next to them. He started speaking in Icelandic and Lauren cut him off. ‘Get on the phone! Call an ambulance!’
‘Riley, I’m OK.’ Matt tried to sit up, sucked in his breath and screamed out in pain.
‘Don’t move. Just stay still.’ Lauren could see his left forearm was bent at an unnatural angle.
The doorman whipped out a cellphone as people began to trickle out of the bar.
‘What happened? Is he all right?’ A chorus of voices rang out in multiple languages all around Lauren and Matt. She could see the crowd pressing around them, leaning in to get a better look.
She steadied Matt as best she could on the icy pavement, trying not to move him too much. ‘Did you see what kind of car it was?’ Lauren called back to the bouncer.
He pulled his gaunt face away from his phone to answer her. ‘No. It came out of nowhere. I think it was black.’
‘Was it a BMW?’ she asked.
He shook his head helplessly. ‘I’m sorry. I was texting my friend. I didn’t see.’
It was definitely a dark-colored SUV. It had happened so fast that that was all Lauren could make out.
‘I am in so much trouble with my wife.’ Matt’s voice was weak and shaky.
‘Are you kidding me? No one is ever going to want to ride with me again. It’s an express ticket to the hospital.’ Lauren tried joking to keep herself from losing it right there in the middle of a frozen street in Iceland. She brushed his dark hair back out of his eyes with her scraped-up hand.
Matt was shivering uncontrollably. A man standing next to her gave Lauren his jacket, which she draped over him. Then she shrugged off her own Parka and put that over him as well.
The SUV had hit him so hard one of his black dress shoes had come off and was lying in the street three feet from him. ‘You lost your shoe. Now you really will have to spring for some boots,’ she said as she sheltered him from the wind with her body.
Matt managed a pained smile, his eyes rolled up in his head, and he passed out.
In the distance, a siren sounded.
THIRTY-TWO
An ambulance took Matt to the hospital. Lauren now waited on the sidewalk, surrounded by uniform officers and the white police vehicles with yellow-and-blue striping that brought them. She was shivering and holding Matt’s shoe. One of the car’s overhead lights revolved lazily with the siren off, bouncing blue light off the bar and neighboring businesses. Just like home, she thought, hugging the single shoe to her chest.
Berg finally pulled up, blocking a driveway to a closed tattoo shop, got out and stalked across the street to her.
‘It’s like the truck disappeared.’ He was breathing heavily, almost panting.
‘Was it the BMW?’ she asked. Once Matt had been taken away the crowd had quickly dispersed. The only other person who had been outside the bar when Matt was hit was the bouncer, who now stood by the door giving the uniform cops his statement. Other cops milled around, gossiping, shooting Lauren sideways glances. And she knew what they were thinking: There’s the American cop who came to Iceland and almost got her partner killed. Look at her. How does she sleep at night?
‘I don’t think so, but I’m no expert on cars.’ He looked on the ground all around them. ‘I don’t see any broken glass from a light or mirror, do you? Maybe the license plate fell off.’
She’d already combed the area while she had been waiting for him to come back. ‘There’s nothing.’
‘Does this bar have cameras out here?’ he yelled to the bouncer.
The doorman and the patrol cops looked up. ‘The only cameras are inside,’ he said.
‘None on the door?’ Berg demanded. ‘None on the street?’
‘Street cameras are the city’s, not ours. And no. There aren’t any cameras out here that I know of.’
Berg swore under his breath. ‘I’m going inside and see if Bjarni is here.’
Lauren was soaked through her black pants, long underwear, suit coat and white shirt. Her parka had gone in the ambulance with Matt. Berg noticed her lips quivering, shrugged out of his coat and draped it over her shoulders. ‘Let’s go.’
She and Berg marched past the cops and doorman into the dimly lit bar.
It was your typical dive bar, like you’d find in any American city. Framed posters of famous rock bands lined the wall mixed in with neon beer signs. A few tables were set up around the small room dominated by the long, polished wood bar along the back near the restrooms. The only other distinguishing feature was a DJ booth built into the wall above a slightly raised dance floor. A bored-looking millennial with dreadlocks stood in front of a double turntable staring at his phone, while that same brand of techno music played. There were plenty of people bellied up to the bar, but no one was dancing.
Everyone stopped talking and stared at them as they crossed to the bar. The only way this could be more cliché is if the DJ scratched the record to a stop, Lauren thought and then mentally kicked herself for letting random observations into her head when she needed to focus on what just happened to Matt. And what just happened to Matt could very well be linked to Bjarni.
Berg pulled his identification out of his back pocket and slapped it open on the bar. ‘Speak in English so my friend can understand you,’ he growled.
The lone bartender stopped polishing a pint glass and tucked it under the bar. He wore a tight black shirt with a red wolf logo stretched across his muscular chest. ‘Can I help you? We don’t want any problems.’
‘Is Bjarni here?’ Lauren noticed the bartender’s tattooed hands never stopped moving. They were now wringing the dishrag between his fingers.
‘He was. He left about an hour ago. Ten minutes before the man got hit outside.’
‘Was he here drinking or working?’ Lauren asked, still clutching the lone shoe.
Berg ignored that. ‘Did he say why he had to leave?’
The bartender ran a hand through his floppy brown hair and shook his head. ‘No. He got a phone call and left. Is he involved in something?’
Someone tipped him off we were coming, Lauren thought. The only question was who: the guy leaning on the BMW, or someone else inside the office they hadn’t seen. ‘Where does Bjarni live?’ Lauren asked.
Berg reached over, stuck his hand into the inside pocket on the coat draped across Lauren’s shoulders, and pulled his notebook out. He slid it across the bar. ‘Write it down.’
‘He stays mostly with his mother.’ The bartender quickly scribbled the address and shoved the notebook back at them like it was radioactive.
Berg handed it to Lauren, who tucked it away. ‘What kind of car does Bjarni drive?’
‘An old white Toyota Corolla. If you think Bjarni ran that man over, I’d think again. He’d hurt the car more than the person if he hit someone with that piece of shit.’
‘Thank you for your time,’ Berg said, effectively dismissing him. He and Lauren turned to walk out. The music turned up a few more notches.
‘I need to get to the hospital,’ Lauren said as she pushed the heavy door open with her hip. ‘I need to make sure Matt is OK.’
‘I’ll drop you off, take care of my statement, and see if I can get more background on Bjarni. We need to find him.’
The night air quickly refroze any part of her that had briefly thawed out in the warm bar. ‘Text me when you’re done,’ she said, trying to keep her teeth from chattering again.
‘What are you thinking, Lauren Riley?’ Berg asked.
She looked over at the spot where Matt had laid sprawled on the ground. ‘Someone just sent us a message.’
THIRTY-THREE
Matt was sedated and getting prepped for surgery when Lauren got to the hospital. The stocky doctor with his hands shoved into the pockets of his white lab coat explained to her that Matt had a compound fracture in his left forearm and a broken clavicle. ‘He’s lucky,’ he told her. ‘We have to reset the bones in his arm, but there are no internal injuries. The clavicle is a clean break. Other than that, just a lot of cuts and bruises.’
He then pointed out that Lauren had scraped up both of her palms pretty badly. She’d forgotten about her hands, but once the doctor brought it to her attention, they began to throb and sting. She’d given Berg his jacket back when he dropped her off and turned over the lone shoe to the attending nurse to put with Matt’s possessions. Now she didn’t know what to do with her aching hands.
The emergency room of the National University Hospital, or Landspítali, as the attending nurse had sounded out for her, was sadly a familiar-looking place to Lauren. Even the waiting room chairs were very similar to the chairs at the Erie County Medical Center. Both were made with a wood frame and spongy blue fabric cushions, although the Icelandic chairs were vastly more comfortable. The biggest difference was the quiet. The emergency room was almost empty, a far cry from the nightly chaos at the Erie County Medical Center back home.
That same nurse had retrieved her parka and brought her a scrub top to wear. She had quickly peeled off her wet jacket and top in the meticulously clean waiting room bathroom, and replaced it with the stiff greenish-colored hospital wear. She stood at the sink and carefully washed her hands. The thick scars across her right palm looked raw and bloody again. Lauren dabbed them dry with a paper towel, knowing she’d have to get some gauze to tape them up. She couldn’t be running around Reykjavík with bloody hands.
Back in the waiting room, Lauren sat down and tried to focus on how to find out who did this to Matt. The room was pleasantly warm but her pants were still soaked, causing her to shiver. Lauren draped her parka over her legs. The outside shell of the parka was damp but, thankfully, the lining was dry. She furiously began fielding texts and calls from her superiors, Matt’s superiors, and the district attorney’s office. Inwardly, she was grateful for that because it put off the inevitable of having to talk to Matt’s wife, Cara.
That gratitude only lasted a few minutes. Her cell buzzed and a call came across her screen: Cara Lawton. As per her commissioner’s instructions, Lauren had put Cara’s number in her phone and Matt had put Reese’s number in his as their emergency contacts. Lauren never believed they’d actually have to use them, although with her track record she should have guessed they’d be needed. Commissioner Bennett obviously had.
Lauren stared at the phone for a second, then told the assistant district attorney she’d call him back.
‘Cara?’ She’d never spoken to Matt’s wife before. She flashed back to the picture he had on his desk. It was him, his baby boy, and his pretty wife, all smiling into the camera. The perfect young family.
Lauren knew that the accident hadn’t happened because of her, but she still felt responsible. It was irrational, but she was getting good at blaming herself.
‘What happened to Matt? Is he all right?’ In the background, a baby howled. She pictured Cara with the phone wedged between her shoulder and ear, bouncing the wailing baby on her hip as she paced around her living room.
‘He’s going to be fine. A couple of broken bones. No internal injuries.’ Lauren tried to sound optimistic and reassuring. The panic in Cara’s voice was real. She’d pick up on any hesitation on Lauren’s part and read the worst into it.
‘But what happened? His supervisor said he was hit by a car.’
Lauren took a deep breath before she spoke. ‘We were crossing a street here in Reykjavík, when a car came from out of nowhere and clipped Matt. It was a hit-and-run.’
‘Did they catch the guy?’
‘As of right now, no.’
There was a long pause on Cara’s end, then: ‘No one will tell me anything. Is he conscious? Is he in pain? Oh my God, what is going on?’ she cried from a world away, making the baby bawl even harder.
‘Cara, he is being prepped for surgery on his arm.’ Keep your voice calm, Lauren reminded herself, don’t feed her panic. ‘He has a compound fracture of the forearm, so they had to sedate him for the surgery to reset the bones. He also has a broken clavicle. The doctor doesn’t seem as concerned with that injury. He said it was a clean break. He assured me Matt is going to be fine.’
She heard Cara take in a deep breath and try to soothe her baby with a shhh shhh shhh. ‘He’s going to be OK?’
She nodded as if Cara could see her. ‘He’s going to be fine.’
Now Cara let loose with straight up sobs of frustration and anger. Lauren wasn’t sure if that frustration and anger was aimed at her or not. She gave Cara the name of the doctor she’d spoken to, cautioning her that Matt was probably in surgery now.
‘Thank you. Thank you,’ she panted, sucking in her sobs. Lauren heard another woman’s voice over the line, gently trying to comfort her. At least Cara wasn’t alone. ‘Please keep me posted. Please.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ Lauren said. Matt’s distraught wife clicked off without saying goodbye.
Lauren sat staring at the phone in her scraped-up hand for a moment. It kept buzzing with incoming calls that she ignored. If it wasn’t Berg or Reese, she didn’t want to talk. She put the phone face down on the chair next to her, tilted her head back and closed her eyes to rerun the scenario over and over in her mind. It was all she could do.
It was ten o’clock when Berg showed up at the hospital. It felt like it was five in the morning to Lauren, who was nursing a two-hour old cup of coffee.
‘How is he doing?’ The snow caught in his red curls quickly melted into droplets in the warmth of the waiting room. He ran his fingers through both sides of his hair causing Lauren to get hit with the spray that came
flying off.
‘Out of surgery,’ she answered. ‘The last I heard from one of the nurses was that he was in one of the recovery rooms. We won’t be able to see him until the morning.’
Berg reached down, putting his hand on Lauren’s shoulder. ‘We have excellent doctors in this hospital. Your friend will be fine. There’s nothing more you can do here.’
She nodded in agreement, or more like surrender, and Berg removed his hand. ‘Take me back to the hotel. I’ll grab an Uber or a cab first thing in the morning and be back here when Matt wakes up.’
‘No and no,’ he corrected her. ‘My wife made enough lamb to feed an army. I know you haven’t eaten since the coffee shop. So we’re going to go back to my house. You’ll meet my wife and daughter. Anna is letting Elin stay up late to meet you. We’ll eat, have some drinks and soak in the hot tub to sooth your nerves.’
Lauren blinked at him in surprise. ‘How can you think of drinking or eating or sitting in a freaking hot tub after our colleague just got run down in the street?’
‘First of all, you need to eat,’ Berg said in a maddeningly patient voice, like he was talking to his daughter and not a forty-year-old police detective. ‘Second, you really, really need a drink. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who needed a drink more than you. And third, we Icelanders use our hot tubs year-round. We soak in them to clear our heads and loosen up our muscles. They are great stress relievers, believe me.’
Even though she didn’t appreciate his tone she couldn’t argue with Berg’s strange logic. ‘Did they find Ragnar or Bjarni yet?’
‘No. And half the Metropolitan police force is out looking for both of them. Ragnar never came home, Bjarni’s mother doesn’t know where he is. As for the car,’ he continued, ‘I went over to Ragnar’s office to check it out for myself. The BMW is still parked there. It was ice cold and there wasn’t a scratch on it.’
‘He owns an import/export business. I’m sure Ragnar has access to a lot of vehicles.’
Berg answered Lauren’s next question without her having to ask. ‘I made certain they put all the collision shops on notice. If anyone tries to get front-end damage fixed in the Capital District, I’ll get a call.’
A Full Cold Moon Page 18