The Wild One

by Nick Petrie

  Peter wondered what strings had been pulled to get the police to part with this information, and who had pulled them, whether official or otherwise. Money had a way of opening doors that were otherwise closed.

  The last page was a printed copy of an email from a detective Philip Moore. He regretted to inform Mrs. Price that the investigation had reached the limits of the MPD’s jurisdiction. The case had been referred to the Icelandic arm of Interpol. He’d included contact information at the end of the email, everything from Iceland’s Interpol office to Moore’s own cell.

  After that came a thin 9x12 envelope holding four large glossy photographs. The first was a head-and-shoulders shot of a serious young woman in rectangular glasses, hair pulled back in a tight bun, wearing a starched blouse and jacket. Sarah Price, Peter assumed. The rest of the images showed a dead woman in a dark business suit, shot in the face, her body sprawled out on a pale sofa saturated with blood. They were images that no parent should have to see. Peter couldn’t imagine why on earth Catherine Price had included those last photos, unless as some form of self-punishment.

  There was nothing to tell why Eiríkur Grímsson had killed Sarah Price and taken their child.

  Peter looked at the time. Three hours later in Washington, D.C. Peter picked up the phone, but got no answer. He left a message.

  “Detective Moore, my name’s Peter Ash. Catherine Price said I could call you. I’m trying to find her grandson, Óskar. I’m hoping you can help.” Before Peter could get to the next section of papers, his phone rang.

  “Phil Moore here. Who the hell is this?” A voice like a scrape.

  “Thanks for calling back,” Peter said. “Óskar Eiríksson’s backpack washed up on the beach in Reykjavík. Mrs. Price asked me to go to Iceland and take another look. Do you remember the case?”

  “Yeah, she called me about the backpack.” A sigh came over the line, long and thin as an unraveling thread. “Listen, Catherine Price is a great lady. She’s been through a lot, and I couldn’t do shit for her. That’s the only reason I’m calling you back. But this is my first night off in two weeks, so make it quick. Whaddaya need?”

  “I’m looking at your paperwork on her daughter’s murder. Did you ever figure out why Sarah Price was killed?”

  “We never found anything like a motive. Maybe she was fucking her personal trainer. Maybe he was fucking the nanny. Maybe he was just looking for an excuse. Who the fuck knows?” The sound of ice rattling into a glass. “You must be private, right? You ever been a real cop?”

  “Never,” said Peter. “I’m not police. I’m just doing this as a favor.” And because he couldn’t sit still.

  “Well, motive is overrated, buddy. Sometimes you never find out why. It’s all about the evidence.”

  “And the evidence pointed to Erik Grímsson.”

  “Absolutely. With the best Metro PD experts and a clear chain of custody. These people, Catherine Price and her husband, they got plenty of money and they’re connected all the way up, so we were more than careful. We found the gun at the scene, registered to Erik Grímsson, with his prints all over it. The ballistics match the rounds we dug out of the wall. His prints were on the shell casings. And he shot her three times in the face, which is a very personal way to kill somebody, by the way. My guess, he either felt real guilty about something, or real angry.”

  Peter asked the question directly. “You’re convinced he killed her?”

  “I’m sure of it.” Peter could hear Moore breathing through his nose. “Okay, look, the case is a year old, and Grímsson’s long gone. We’ll probably never touch him. Maybe if we’re lucky, he’ll fuck up somewhere and the locals will grab him. But I’ve been a cop a long time, and I’m telling you, he’s guilty as hell. Plus, he ran where we couldn’t follow. Why would he run if he didn’t do it?”

  Peter wasn’t doubting, he just wanted to know more. “Why would he take the boy with him?”

  “Maybe it was for protection, like a hostage. To get his in-laws to back off.”

  “Did he ever make that demand?”

  “Not that I heard about, although his in-laws probably wouldn’t have told me if he did. That kind of money, they make their own rules. Maybe they’re putting money in an overseas account for the guy, because they don’t want that kid to suffer any more than he already has. Not that I blame ’em. You know we think the kid was with him, right? When he did it?”

  “Jesus.”

  “You said it, buddy. And this case is nothing compared to the shit I’ve seen. Teenagers shooting each other over a pair of shoes. Mothers throwing their babies off the fire escape because God told them to. Fathers killing their whole damn families because they were tired of paying child support. I’m telling you, people are animals. Five more years of this shit and I’m gonna retire and forget all about this life. Move to Key West and run a charter boat and screw all the tourist ladies who’ll have me.”

  “Well,” said Peter. “Thanks for your time.”

  “No problem, buddy. Now I’m gonna hang up and finish getting drunk, then watch basketball until I fall asleep on the couch. Don’t ever become a cop.”

  * * *

  —

  Peter went back to Catherine Price’s papers.

  The second sheaf came from the Norwegian investigator, who had done a fair amount of work before he ended up in the hospital. He’d begun by making a list of members of Erik’s extended family, including photos lifted from social media, which was apparently a major form of communication for Icelanders. Then he’d used public records to create a detailed profile of everyone he could find. The Norwegian had computer skills Peter lacked. The profiles were impressive. They included home and work addresses, any property and vehicles he could find, their occupations, and any criminal history.

  The histories were interesting. Scanning the paperwork, Peter found a robust multigenerational tradition of physical assaults. The fights often involved alcohol, and seemed to be the men of the family confronting men they weren’t related to, going all the way back to Erik’s great-grandfather, Thorvaldur, who was ninety-six. Thorvaldur’s last criminal complaint came at the age of ninety-two, when he’d assaulted another farmer with a hay fork. The punctured farmer was sixty years younger, and had ended up dropping the charges.

  In fact, not many criminal complaints had led to arrests. Very few arrests went to trial. Maybe they were all wrongly accused, Peter thought. Or they had friends in high places. Or they were very good at intimidation.

  The family would lead Peter to Óskar, Catherine Price had said.

  Iceland was the Wyoming of Europe. Geographically isolated, economically challenged, a fierce, hard place for fierce, hard people. Family ties and endless struggle were what allowed people to survive, even thrive. They were proud of their Viking heritage. The tourist boom hadn’t changed that, not yet.

  Clearly, the family was a problem.

  After the background work, probably all done from his desk, the Norwegian had gone into the field to interview the family members in person. He’d started with Erik’s cousin, Bjarni Bergsson, because he was the only family member Erik was known to have made contact with after the murder, and he was based in Reykjavík.

  Bjarni had been uncooperative.

  He’d broken the Norwegian’s nose.

  A copy of the doctor’s diagnosis was attached.

  Next, the Norwegian had talked to Erik’s mother, Greta. She was a vulcanologist at the Institute of Earth Sciences, and she lived in Selfoss, an agricultural community an hour’s drive from Reykjavík. Bjarni had obviously put word on the family grapevine, because when the Norwegian arrived at her house, she slammed the door in his face. Unfortunately, it happened before the Norwegian managed to get his face entirely out of the way.

  When the Norwegian sat in his car the next morning, waiting for her to leave for work so he could brace her again
, a pair of unknown Icelanders stopped by and told him to leave. Their request resulted in minor damage to his rented Volvo. The repair estimate was attached.

  It occurred to Peter that the Norwegian investigator, while great at digging up information on the internet, might not be suited to fieldwork. At least not with this family.

  Erik’s older brother, who owned a glacier excursion business, had bombarded the Norwegian with ice balls, then stomped the investigator’s camera and phone into the hard-packed snow.

  Another cousin ran a high-end guesthouse outside of Skaftafell. She’d set her sheepdogs on him, then pulled rocks from her yard and pelted his car as he drove away. The medical paperwork noted twelve stitches in the Norwegian’s calf and a rabies shot. Another auto repair estimate was attached.

  Obviously, none of them admitted to knowing where Erik and Óskar had gone.

  Between these pleasant home visits, the Norwegian had called Erik’s relatives who were living abroad. Icelanders often left home to gain work experience overseas, especially after the financial disaster that followed the collapse of Iceland’s banks. Erik had moved to Washington, D.C., Erik’s father lived in London, his sister in Edinburgh, another brother in Toronto with his wife and kids. A half-dozen more aunts and uncles and cousins were spread all over Europe and Australia.

  None of them had returned the Norwegian’s calls.

  The family grapevine had a long reach.

  The Norwegian’s last stop was Seydisfjordur, where two of Erik’s uncles docked their fishing boat. But the boat was gone when he arrived, and after waiting for three days, it hadn’t returned. Either they were fishing in the North Atlantic or their boat had sunk, because the Norwegian never found them.

  He never made it to the family farm, either.

  12

  The farm was more of a family compound, Peter realized. Catherine’s documents included a Google Earth photo blown up to blueprint size and when he unfolded it, he saw green hills and fields that stretched from the mountains to the sea. The Norwegian had marked the farm boundaries in different colored pens. Like a grade-school geography report, Peter thought.

  Outlined in red, the main farm stood at the base of a high, rocky promontory. Founded more than two hundred years ago, and owned now by Erik’s grandmother, Yrsa Thorvaldsdóttir, it had grown to cover a wide, fertile plain, then jumped the main road and continued down to a broad, open bay with a gray beach. The scale was small enough that Peter could see braided streams, a wandering gravel driveway, and the long, straight lines of ditches draining the inundated meadows to make them usable for cultivation.

  The photo must have been taken in summer, because the ditch bottoms were bright yellow with flowers. They were probably dandelions, one of the few flowering plants hardy enough to thrive in the Icelandic climate. Icelanders couldn’t afford to consider them weeds.

  Wrapping around the promontory on each side, two more farms spread out like raised wings, their borders drawn in black and blue. The farms were owned by Erik’s grandmother’s brothers, and although the fields stretched away from the headland, each farm’s buildings all stood fairly close to one another. An easy walk, Peter figured, from one farm to the next. A few hundred meters at most. A close-knit family.

  With the big barns making up an outer perimeter and the smaller farmhouses with their backs protected by the high promontory, all of them surrounded by a network of drainage ditches that must be wide and deep to be visible in the satellite photo, the entire compound reminded Peter of nothing more than a fortified medieval village.

  Peter could picture that first tiny, turf-walled house, built more than two hundred years ago, when Iceland was still an unsettled wilderness in the middle of a mostly uncharted northern ocean.

  The Norwegian had been on his way there when a jacked-up silver SUV came up behind him and ran him off the road. The Norwegian didn’t recognize the make or model. The license plate had been smeared with mud.

  When the rented Volvo rolled down the rocky slope, every air bag had inflated. Still, the resulting injuries had forced the doctors to put the Norwegian in an induced coma for five days.

  In his final report, the investigator fired his clients and made note of his final invoice, which was not included in Peter’s papers and must have been enormous.

  The Norwegian had made an effort, Peter thought. And paid for it.

  These Icelanders weren’t fucking around.

  How was it that Wetzel had thought this was something Peter could do?

  Even more troubling, why did Peter want so badly to try?

  Unfortunately, he already knew the answer to the second question.

  Nobody had tried to kill him since Memphis. If he went to Iceland, someone might try to kill him again. In fact, it seemed likely.

  Peter didn’t want to admit that the simple prospect of dying made him feel more alive than he’d felt in months.

  There was definitely something wrong with him.

  It wasn’t the first time he’d considered this.

  The question was, did he need fixing?

  June certainly thought so.

  13

  He finished his dinner and was going through the papers again when his phone rang. It was Tom Wetzel. “You met with Catherine Price,” he said. “Tell me you’re going.”

  Peter didn’t remember Wetzel being this relentless. His battalion nickname had been Wetzel the Pretzel. Maybe corporate life had stiffened him up.

  “I haven’t decided yet. I’m still reading the file she gave me. Mrs. Price has legal custody of the boy?”

  “Absolutely. I’ll email the paperwork if you want to see it.”

  “I do,” he said. “Tom, what happened with Sarah Price? Does anyone have any idea why Erik might have killed her?”

  “I don’t know. When you find him, you can ask.”

  “Were they fighting about something?”

  “I don’t know that, either. Look, I’m running point on this for Catherine, but I actually work for Jerry Brunelli, Catherine’s husband. I’d only met Sarah a few times. We had a professional relationship. Can we get back on task, here?”

  Peter looked at the name on the black credit card. “What kind of work does Price Consulting do?”

  “We’re a political consulting shop. Government is complicated. People hire us to help get stuff done.”

  “Like what? Pass legislation? Win contracts?”

  “Whatever the clients need. Why are you asking?”

  “I was wondering why Catherine Price has a bodyguard.”

  “In this town, perception is everything. A bodyguard is a D.C. Lamborghini, the ultimate symbol of importance. You have no idea how much money is floating around Washington.”

  This was classic Wetzel the Pretzel. “Tom.”

  Wetzel sighed. “My understanding is that Novak’s more of a driver. He pulls the car around, holds the umbrella, picks up the dry cleaning.”

  “You ever meet Novak? I don’t see him running errands. He seems pretty focused on taking care of Catherine.”

  “He’s a former cop, Peter. He’s got a mission mind-set, just like you and me.”

  “Has there ever been a threat?”

  “We’re a small shop, but we do a serious business. We pull the levers, you know? But some levers don’t like to get pulled.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “This isn’t Iraq, Peter. People play for keeps in this town, but a big move is a grand jury subpoena, not a gun in your face. Anyway, if everyone liked us, we wouldn’t be doing our job, right? It’s just the cost of doing business.”

  “And that’s nothing to do with Sarah’s murder. Or Erik.”

  “Absolutely not. I’ll send you the nondisclosure now. You can see why we need you, right?”

  “No,” Peter said. “I don’t. I was an infant
ry officer, not a cop.”

  “That boy doesn’t need a cop. The Norwegian investigator already did that work. That boy needs someone strong and resourceful enough to face that family and find a way to get him back home. If you know someone better who can be there tomorrow, let me know.”

  Peter could think of any number of people. He was the wrong man by every measure. Never mind that he wasn’t anyone’s idea of an investigator. Any good he’d done in the world had largely come from dumb luck, a stubborn streak, and a fierce desire to be useful.

  To make some kind of atonement for the things he’d done in war, and afterward.

  He looked at the crisp stacks of paper held firm by Catherine Price’s neat purple binder clips, their orderly edges a vain attempt at containing the chronicle of violence and pain within.

  The padded envelope lay open, carrying its useless freight of money and hope.

  The finger-worn photo of stone-faced Erik and little Óskar stood propped against his half-empty beer glass.

  None of his reasons mattered, Peter knew.

  He was going anyway. Even if he had to pack himself onto an airplane to do it.

  He said, “Do you know anything else that isn’t in the report?”

  “Did you see the video?”

  “No.” Peter fished through Catherine Price’s envelope. “On the thumb drive?”

  “That’s it. You should take a look. You’ll get a sense of Erik. Maybe provide some motivation.”