“I just had a visit with her,” I said. “It’s nice to know you’re both doing so well.”
Kevin’s eyebrows rose, but his voice stayed even. “Yeah. The garage is starting to make money and Beck is great with the kids. They keep us hopping, but we like it that way.”
“You must put in long hours.”
“It’s been a hard go, for sure, but I see some light at the end of the tunnel. It’s all worth it, though. I want the best for Beck and the kids. Say, you staying with Jonas?”
“Yes, but just for a few days more. I have to get back to my life in Ottawa.”
“That’s right. Becky said you married a rich Canadian and set up a medical practice in the Great White North. No kids?”
“No, no kids.”
“Kept your life simple.” He chuckled and looked past me out the plate glass window. “Seems like I have a customer.” He picked up the rag from the counter. “Will you be stopping by the house again before you leave?”
“I hope to.”
“Well, great.” Kevin was already halfway to the door. He turned as he pushed it open. “Sorry about your dad, but it’s been good to see you, Maja. Becky wants to go to his service, so we’ll see you then. Do you know the time he’ll be buried?”
I listened for something more in his voice. I didn’t know him well enough to tell if he was hiding anything. “Claire is working out the details. Call the house tonight and she’ll be able to tell you.”
“We’ll do that. Beck and I wouldn’t miss saying goodbye.”
I watched Kevin walk away from me before I too started for the door. Suddenly, I was hungry and tired of my amateur attempts at investigating old schoolmates. Unless someone confessed to the crime, I wasn’t so sure I had the ability to trip them up. I wouldn’t give in yet, but I needed to sit somewhere over a few cups of coffee to figure out the next steps.
Frida’s was empty except for a girl of sixteen who sat on a stool reading a novel behind the cash. She raised her head and smiled 67 at me as I entered and told me to sit anywhere. I headed towards the windows facing the lake and sat in the same chair that Tobias had sat in on our visit the day before. I liked the feel of the room—redwood panelling on the walls and a view of the rocky beach and lake. I ordered the breakfast special with fried eggs from the girl as she poured me a mug of coffee. I sipped the hot brew and listened to James Taylor sing “Fire and Rain” from a speaker above my head. It was mid-afternoon, and already the day’s light was less intense than it had been when I’d walked on the beach. A bank of clouds seemed to be moving in from the west. It wouldn’t be much longer before the sun would be giving way to an early nightfall.
I’d just begun carving into my eggs and bacon when the door opened and the bell jangled to announce another customer. I kept my eyes on my meal, not all that happy to have to share my space with other people. I looked up when Tobias slid into the seat across from me. He was dressed in a navy police uniform, visible under his open parka. He removed his aviator sunglasses, and his green eyes looked me over. He’d brought with him a waft of cold air and the pine smell of the outdoors.
“A little late for breakfast.” He reached over, plucked a piece of bacon from my plate and put it into his mouth. “See you skipped the scrambled.”
“Once bitten,” I mumbled, a little put out at having to share my thinking time. I swallowed a bite of toast and said, “Make any progress on finding who killed my father?”
Tobias shook his head. He sat sideways in the chair and stretched out his legs. “I have some...well, disturbing news, though. I just came from Jonas’s, and I told him that somebody got to your father’s house before we did this morning and went through it pretty good. I’m not sure if they stole anything, but the place is quite a mess.” He watched me as he spoke. “Were you back there by any chance?”
“No.” I tried to hold his gaze. I wouldn’t mention that I’d planned another visit but had gotten sidetracked. “I wonder if this has anything to do with his murder or whether it’s just local kids taking advantage of an empty house.”
“Jonas is at your dad’s now with David Keating, having a look around to see if anything is missing.”
I started to stand up, but Tobias motioned me back into my seat. “Finish eating. It’s not like you can do anything now.”
“I’ve lost my appetite.”
“Well, you finish the toast, and I’ll eat the eggs.” Tobias reached for my plate. “Did I tell you that you’re looking mighty fine this afternoon?” he asked as he picked up my fork.
“Are you always this forward, Officer Olsen?” I asked.
“Only when it comes to you, Maja Larson.” Tobias grinned. His eyes held mine for a moment longer than necessary before he lowered his head to begin eating my meal.
Tobias followed me in his police cruiser along the road that hugged the coastline towards my father’s house. We passed the turnoff to Jonas’s place and continued the steep climb up the hill. The light was starting to fade, and shafts of golden, watery sunlight broke through the trees. The tops of the spruce and pine formed a black, jagged line against the sky. The heavy cloud cover had progressed rapidly over the course of the afternoon, promising more snow. It would be a dark, difficult drive home on the winding country road.
I parked my car behind Jonas’s truck, and Tobias pulled in behind me. A second police car was angled into the clearing to the left of our vehicles. Tobias and I made our way to the back door, where we found the yellow crime scene tape flapping in the wind.
“Do you really expect a piece of tape to keep people out?” I asked over my shoulder.
“Most people are law-abiding,” Tobias said. “If we weren’t so short-staffed, we’d have finished our work long before now, and the parade of visitors wouldn’t have been such a problem.”
I stepped inside and stopped, shocked at the violent mess. Dishes were smashed on the floor, and all of the cupboards had been turned inside out. Even the fridge contents spilled onto the floor, its door hanging open and the smell of rotting food making me gag. Tobias and I made our way carefully around shards of glass and walked down the hallway into the living room. The same vandalism had taken place here: Dad’s books strewn about the room, cushions ripped open so the stuffing spilled forth like soap bubbles, curtains torn from the windows, furniture upended and the large-screen television smashed beyond repair. I stood speechless, trying to take it in. Tobias put a hand around my forearm.
I shook my head. “Why would somebody do this?”
We continued upstairs. David Keating met us at the head of the stairs. “Hi, Maja,” he said. “Sorry about your dad and all this.” David had been four years ahead of me in high school, putting him at forty-four or five. He was completely bald but had a thick, grey moustache that drooped around either side of his mouth. He’d kept a runner’s physique, and I remembered that he’d won several cross-country running trophies in high school. It was odd the selective memories that were coming back to me. Ones I hadn’t had in twenty years.
“Prepare yourself for more of the same up here,” Tobias said. “It’s not pretty. Luckily, the basement is still intact. Maybe, the intruder was interrupted.”
“Jonas doesn’t think anything is missing but he says he has no way of knowing for sure,” David said to me. He shook his head in disgust before he and Tobias disappeared into the workout room. I walked down the hall to my father’s bedroom. My mother’s hope chest had been wrenched open, deep scratches marring its surface and its contents in disarray on the floor. The sadness threatened to well up inside me again. My mother’d loved this chest. Jonas was crouched in front of it, sorting through photograph albums with ripped pages. He was inserting photographs that had been thrown on the floor. Ornaments and mementos lay smashed and scattered around him.
“Hey, Jonas,” I said and crossed to kneel beside him. He handed me a photo of the two of us, aged four and two, holding hands and standing in front of our house. In the picture, I’m wearing a red sweat
er with black kittens stitched on the pockets. My hair is long and white-blonde. Jonas is just as blond and a chubby toddler. We both look serious, not smiling for the camera.
“At least these are salvageable,” I said.
“I can’t see anything missing, but who knows, really?” Jonas repeated what Tobias had already told me. “It’s not like I knew everything Dad owned.”
“He had some expensive electronics and gym equipment.”
“Dad never seemed to lack money. He bought a new boat and van last year.”
“Oh? I haven’t seen them.”
“The boat is stored at the marina in Lutsen, and Kevin Wilders has the van in his shop. Dad was having a new sound system put in. I just haven’t gotten around to picking it up.”
“I didn’t think he made that much working at the border. Where was he getting that kind of money?”
Jonas shrugged. “He used to go to the casino on his way home after the night shift. He told me he won a few jackpots.”
“They must have been big ones.” I felt a fluttering in my throat. The rampage in my father’s house spoke of an anger that had not ended with his death. My father had been up to something, and it looked like whatever it was had taken on a destructive life of its own.
Jonas rubbed a hand vigorously through his hair until it looked like a windstorm had swept through. His hands were shaking when he pushed himself to his feet. I stood too and put an arm around his waist to give him a hug. “You okay?” I asked.
“I think I need to see the doctor soon.”
“Is it coming on again?”
“Yeah. I haven’t had the feeling for a long time, but this week is taking a toll.”
“I can drive you tomorrow if you like.”
“The service is in the morning. We might be too busy.”
“We’ll make time,” I said firmly.
A noise at the door.
Jonas and I turned our heads in unison to find Tobias just inside the doorway watching us. He was standing perfectly still with his arms crossed in front of his chest and an odd expression on his face like he’d finally figured something out. His eyes had gone a darker shade of green in the dim light, and for the first time, I thought about the real danger he presented to my family. I quickly stepped away from Jonas, as if our physical distance would keep Tobias from knowing we’d been sharing confidences. All the while, I wondered how much he’d overheard.
NINE
It was a disgruntled assortment of people who saw Dad off to the netherworld. I sat in the front pew beside Jonas and Claire, who weren’t speaking to each other. Gunnar slouched next to them, equally sullen and withdrawn. Becky, with Kevin in tow, made an entrance just before the service. Becky was dressed in a sapphire-blue suit with shoulder pads that hung loosely on her slender frame. She’d applied mascara and eye shadow with a liberal hand, perhaps to hide the tears she’d shed. Compared to the rest of us, she was a peacock of colour. Kevin had resurrected a brown tweed jacket and dress pants that were two inches two short. His slicked-back brown hair revealed a broad forehead of pinkish skin. He looked tired and ill at ease.
The chapel was crowded with townsfolk. I recognized my mother’s old friends, the Mattsens and the Karlssons, both couples now in their seventies. The mayor, Jon Cronhielm, and his wife sat in the front pew across from us, and behind them were Chief Anders and David Keating, both in dark blue suits. Chief Anders nodded in my direction when he saw me looking, and I lifted a hand in a quick wave then turned to face the front as the priest began the proceedings. Anders had aged a lot since I’d last seen him twenty years before. His hair had turned a yellowish white, and pouches of flesh lay in half-moons under his eyes, which had retained the sharpness I remembered. He looked to have all his wits about him on the eve of his retirement.
We’d convinced Claire to keep Dad’s casket closed, and that was about the extent of Jonas’s and my input. She’d selected an expensive-looking mahogany number in rich brown, which we followed in a bleak procession to our seats. I’d kept my eyes focused on the cascade of white roses laid across its centre. The flowers were one more example of Claire’s attention to detail. I was surprised that she’d taken on this role that should have been mine—surprised, but thankful. Claire had chosen a simple black dress that showed off her muscular arms and swanlike neck. She’d pulled her hair back with a black headband but a strand of pearls kept the outfit from being austere. After a morning-long battle of wills with his mother, Gunnar had angrily given in to her insistence that he wear his grey suit. He’d outgrown the jacket and pants, and I’d silently rooted for him to get his way, but Claire would not be deterred. His teen years promised to be a battleground.
I don’t remember details about the service. Hymns were sung and psalms read. The mayor and Chief Anders each spoke of Dad’s finer qualities, and I had to keep reminding myself who they were talking about. A man with red hair that lay in curls on his shoulders and the complexion of an under ripe peach read the Lord’s Prayer. I’d never seen him before.
“Who’s that?” I whispered to Claire as the man closed his book, bowed his head and started back up the aisle to his seat.
“Charlie Mallory,” Claire whispered back. “Dad’s partner at the border crossing.”
I leaned forward to get a better look. He had to be in his early thirties and had the face of a boxer with a crooked nose and scarred cheek. Nobody would ever mistake him for handsome. He raised his head and scanned our pew. I looked down so he wouldn’t see me staring. He was another link in Dad’s recent life that I would investigate once the funeral was over.
The priest raised his hands for the benediction. I bowed my head and closed my eyes. I did not believe in God’s grace. Not any more. Not after my mother’s suicide. If there was a god, he would have embraced my mother’s weary, hurting soul, not denied her burial in consecrated ground as her church had done. My god would be merciful.
Jonas took my right arm. “All set?” he asked.
“As set as I’ll ever be.”
I opened my eyes and stood. I could make it down the aisle behind the coffin. I would find it in me to make small talk with these people who had come to honour my father. I would try to read guilt in the eyes of the person who had swung the shovel and who had returned to destroy our home.
This time, I looked deeply into each set of eyes as we made our slow journey toward fresh air and freedom, once again in solemn procession behind the priest. Most nodded, and I smiled at them. Their eyes and mouths were a combination of sadness for my father and gladness that I had returned—the prodigal daughter, back from the wilderness. Faint sunlight brightened the primary reds and blues of the stained glass windows, five on each side of the church. The air was heavy with women’s perfumes and the cloying scent of lilies in vases at the extremities of the chapel. It felt like an eternity before I was almost at the end of the red-carpeted pathway. I could see the foyer where we would put on our coats and go outside into the silver-blue winter day to follow my father’s body to the graveyard.
I was steps from the doorway when I saw him. It was that sudden and that unexpected—Billy Okwari sitting in the last pew, the only person sitting amongst a sea of standing legs, his liquid black eyes watching me—the same eyes that haunted my dreams. His hair still black, but longer and tied back, dressed in a well-worn grey leather jacket. He was stockier than I remembered, but familiar still in the way his shoulders curved forward ever so slightly and the tapered line of his jaw. He’d been all of eighteen the last time we’d been together—a child now grown into middle age. Our eyes held. His gaze burned into me, like he was trying to read who I’d become. An electric current travelled up my spine. I let out a gasp, and Jonas slipped an arm around my waist.
“We’re nearly there,” he said, unaware that my distress was not from the strain of our father’s funeral.
I tried to push past his arm, but Jonas held me fast and suddenly, we were in the foyer and people were swarming about us, shaking our
hands and murmuring words of sympathy. I finally broke away, frantically searching those remaining. There was no sign of Billy in the crowded room. I turned and stumbled back into the chapel. My eyes scanned the empty pews. Billy Okwari was gone. Grief overwhelmed me. I stood bereft next to the confessionals, trying to still my breathing into a regular pattern.
Claire came up behind me. “Is everything okay? You bolted away from us like you’d been spooked.”
“No, it’s nothing like that,” I said and half-turned to face her, not wanting her to see what was surely written in my eyes. “But I have to go to the washroom before we leave.”
“We’ll see you in the car then.” Claire pivoted on the soles of her black boots and called to Gunnar as I made a beeline for the ladies at the end of the hallway.
I only just made it into the first empty stall and locked the door as my tears began to flow.
I recovered enough to get through the next few hours. Dad wouldn’t be buried until the ground thawed in early spring, but we saw him safely to the crypt. Afterwards, we drove back to the house, where Claire had arranged for a caterer to deliver sandwiches and squares for those who stopped by. For some reason, she’d insisted on serving sweet, sparkling wine, something I hadn’t drunk since ninth grade beach parties. Jonas and I took one look at the green bottles Claire had arranged in ice on the kitchen table, then at each other. I motioned with my head towards my room at the back of the house, and we left the kitchen separately as soon as there was a break in the conversation. Jonas met me in my bedroom a few minutes later with two wineglasses he’d smuggled out of the kitchen. He’d loosened his tie and his shirt was wrinkled under his open suit jacket. I opened the bottle of Scotch that I’d kept in a bag next to my bed and poured us each a healthy measure. I put the cap back on the bottle and tucked it between the bed and the night table.
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