Eirik Nyland was the person who had made the whole disappearing act possible. Lance had chosen some Norwegian postcards from his personal collection and written messages to friends and family, as if he were vacationing in Norway. Then he’d sent the cards to Nyland with instructions about when each one was to be mailed. As far as the Norwegian police detective knew, Lance was shacking up for a month with some woman he’d just met, and he didn’t want his colleagues or family to start poking around and asking questions.
When he woke up, it was midnight. He went over to the window to look out. Even the old, faded shopping center looked beautiful in the light from the moon. Not a sound could be heard; the buildings and parked cars cast long blue shadows.
LANCE KNEW EVERY MILE of the road between Ely and the lake, and yet the landscape seemed transformed in the moonlight. There were bridges he didn’t recognize, and big open expanses in the midst of the forested terrain. He wasn’t sure whether they concealed water or marshes. At lengthy intervals a building or two would appear, but even those he was unable to place.
He’d started to wonder if he might have taken a wrong turn, when he suddenly found himself in the town of Finland. It was impossible to mistake the twenty-foot-high wooden sculpture of St. Urho, the Finnish American patron saint, as it stood there looking like some sort of totem pole.
Finland was wrapped in ice-cold slumber, not a single person was outside, and no movement was visible behind the curtains in the few houses where the lights were still on.
As he passed the town’s only shop, the Finland General Store, where you could buy everything from sewing accessories to bread and milk to snow blowers, he realized why he’d driven to this particular place. Debbie Ahonen. They’d dated for a short time when Lance was twenty-five, but Debbie fell in love with another policeman and moved to California. He’d hardly recognized her last summer, more than twenty years later, when he’d unexpectedly discovered her sitting behind the counter ringing up his purchases. Only when she spoke did he realize who she was, although her voice, like everything else, was duller than he remembered. That voice of hers. In the past it had nearly driven him crazy. How many lonely nights had he lain awake, trying to conjure up the sound in his memory? But when he heard it again last summer, he’d noticed instantly that something was missing. He couldn’t put it into words. A certain sweetness? Or was it simply her lost youth? In any case, it had no doubt disappeared from his own voice as well. If his voice had ever contained any hint of youthfulness, that is. Regardless, he had recognized Debbie the second she spoke to him. Her laughter, which men in the past would have killed to hear, was now merely a prologue to a smoker’s cough of the very worst kind. He could hear the mucus laboriously making its way up her respiratory passages to land in her mouth, followed by the sound of her swallowing it again.
And yet she was still Debbie Ahonen.
Richie Akkola, who owned both the gas station and the grocery store, had to be close to seventy, and he’d been a widower for years. Now Debbie was living with him in an apartment above the station. What was it she’d said? Something about Richie taking care of her old mother. And it was because of her mother, who couldn’t manage on her own anymore, that Debbie had moved back here. But now Richie Akkola was caring for her, and in return Debbie was living with him. Was that the arrangement? In return?
Lance stopped the car outside the gas station and sat there, staring at the windows on the second floor. It was dark up there, and the curtains were drawn. That’s where Debbie is right now, thought Lance. He almost couldn’t believe it was true. Like a sleepwalker, and without knowing why, he reached out to turn on the radio, which had been on the blink for nearly a week. Suddenly the car was filled with voices and laughter. His heart skipped a beat and a sharp taste, as if from metal or blood, filled his mouth. A light went on behind one of the windows above the gas station. Lance quickly put the car in gear and drove off.
The radio program he’d tuned in to was a repeat of the most recent Car Talk. The two hosts, who were brothers, had a man from Boulder, Colorado, on the line. “So your windshield wipers keep going on and off at random?” said one of the hosts in surprise. “Yeah. They act like they’ve got a will of their own,” said the caller. “I have the same problem with my wife,” replied the other brother.
HE PASSED the Whispering Pines Motel where Georg Lofthus and his friend had spent the last night before Lofthus was killed. No, not his friend, Lance corrected himself, his lover. Georg Lofthus and Bjørn Hauglie had been lovers who’d kept their relationship secret, since the Christian community to which they belonged was extremely judgmental. Even sitting alone in his car in the middle of the night, Lance had a hard time thinking about what was discovered during the autopsy of Lofthus’s body. Hauglie’s semen was found in his stomach. When Lance heard about that, he’d felt as if the last puzzle piece had fallen into place, and it was a puzzle showing him the all-too-familiar face of the man who had murdered Lofthus. Only a day after the murder, Lance had begun to suspect his brother. But why would Andy have killed the Norwegian canoeist?
When Lance found out that the Norwegians were gay, he instantly thought about the episode from high school involving a boy named Clayton Miller. Everybody knew that Clayton was gay, even though no one had ever heard him say so or seen any obvious indications of his sexual preference. It was just something they all knew. Even though Lance had spoken to the boy only once, he had a very clear memory of how Clayton looked. A lock of his raven-black hair, which was cropped close in the back, hung over one eye. He wore long, multicolored scarves that he had supposedly knitted himself. Lance shook his head at the thought. A boy who knitted!
Clayton Miller was like no one else at their school. He stood out. And that must be why Lance remembered his appearance so clearly more than thirty years later. And because of the one instance when he’d spoken to the boy. That was on a Saturday, when the schoolyard was deserted, and Clayton was lying on the ground with a punctured lung. Lance had been frantically summoned by one of Andy’s friends. As he was walking across the schoolyard toward Clayton, he saw his brother suddenly come around the corner of the gym, holding a baseball bat in his hands. In Andy’s eyes Lance saw the look of a person who was so alone that he didn’t know what in the world to do with himself. It was a look that he’d never seen before. Lance hadn’t hesitated. He went over to Andy and grabbed hold of the bat, saying, “Let go.” He was not afraid of his younger brother. Not back then.
Andy had instantly released the bat and after stammering a few incomprehensible words, he fled the schoolyard. When Lance asked Clayton Miller how he was doing, the boy replied that he thought his lung was punctured. Lance remembered so clearly how the boy who was lying on the asphalt had carefully whispered his reply, as if scared that he might rip himself open if he spoke too loud. “Are you his brother?” Clayton whispered. And when Lance nodded, he said, “He tried to kill me.” Those were the only words Lance had ever exchanged with Clayton Miller.
IT WAS 3:05 IN THE MORNING when Lance drove into Two Harbors. The light from the moon, which was now low in the west, made the signs in front of the Dairy Queen cast long shadows across the sidewalk. In the frozen landscape the ads for Blizzards and milkshakes seemed totally absurd.
Lance parked near the Lutheran church, then walked back to the Dairy Queen and headed down the road behind the building. The snow creaked under his boots, but otherwise it was utterly quiet in Two Harbors. Not even a police patrol car anywhere in sight. He walked slowly, as if trying to postpone what was coming. Finally he stood still and stared at the green, two-story house with the two cars out front: a brand-new Ford Freestar and an old white Chevy Blazer with a red door on the right-hand side. The house was a good fifty yards away, so there was still time to turn around.
He continued the rest of the way over to the cars and crouched down behind the Chevy. He listened hard, but not a sound came from the house, and only the outdoor light was on. After staying there like that for
several minutes, he stood up and went over to the house to try peering through the living room window. But it was darker inside than out, and through a gap in the curtains he could make out only a TV, identifiable because of its red electronic light. He crept over to the kitchen window and looked inside. Here the moonlight was shining through another window so he could see the counter and table. The counter was covered with bottles, boxes, and a number of other things he didn’t recognize. On the table he saw a coffee mug, a pack of cigarettes, and a lighter. Even though all the clutter and the cigarettes would not have been found in his own home, the sight of those items still stirred up emotions for him. Probably because this was the first home he’d seen in more than two months, his first glimpse of someone’s private life.
A door opened. Fear raced through him like a paralyzing fluid. He hardly dared breathe as he waited for Andy’s voice, but nothing happened. Had he just imagined the sound? No, he was sure he’d heard it. Feeling weak and sick with terror, he managed to move back to the cars and crouch down behind the Chevy again. From that position he saw a light go on in the bathroom. After a few minutes it was turned off, but he didn’t dare go back to the house. He couldn’t keep moving about like this. Somebody was bound to see him, but there was something about the sight of a home that got to him, even if it wasn’t the nicest. He was afraid of getting caught, but he felt such a longing to go inside. Or maybe not inside that particular house. Some other house where people were living out their lives.
The side window of the Chevy was coated with a layer of ice. Lance took off his right glove and scraped at the ice with his fingernail. He had an urge to leave something behind, something that would connect him to them. But what should it be? He couldn’t simply write his initials.
In the end he scratched a tiny figure of a man in the ice.
5
LANCE GOT BACK IN HIS CAR and drove the back roads toward Finland, but without knowing why or where he was actually heading. No matter what, he couldn’t let anyone see him. For instance, it would be unthinkable to walk into Our Place, Finland’s only bar, and have a chat with Ben Harvey, the amiable owner of the place. It was Ben who had told Lance that Andy had spent a whole evening in the bar with Georg Lofthus and his friend. That was one of the many things Andy had never mentioned, either to his brother or to the authorities. And it was one of the many things Lance had never told anyone else either. But if it had been simply an ordinary meeting of three men in a bar, then why hadn’t Andy reported it when one of the Norwegians was found murdered? He wasn’t the only person in the area to have met and spoken to those two, and other people had been more than happy to talk to the police.
When he reached Finland, Lance pulled his scarf up to cover his mouth and nose. It was light enough that he might be recognized. Slowly he drove past the Finland General Store as he tried to catch sight of Debbie Ahonen through the window. It wasn’t easy, since the Christmas decorations hadn’t been taken down yet. In the town of Finland, Santa Claus was still on his way with a sleigh full of packages. The eight reindeer were prancing along, with competing red lights blinking from the sled, from Rudolph’s nose, and from Santa himself. It was hopeless trying to see a Finnish blond through all of that.
Just outside of Finland five or six ravens rose up from the road to perch in a nearby tree and wait for the car to pass. They’d been having a real feast. The guts and stomach contents of a buck were scattered over a wide area. Maybe the wolf had been there too. As Lance drove past, some of the ravens flapped their wings to fly farther away, but two of them stayed where they were. They were so black that they didn’t look real as they sat there in all that whiteness, as if someone had placed a couple of plastic figures high in the trees. Suddenly one of them shrieked, although for Lance it was a soundless shriek since he was enveloped in the noise of the car. But he saw the bird stretch out its neck and seem to eject the raven shriek from its suddenly opened beak. He could practically see the sound. Then he was past, and in the rearview mirror he saw that the ravens were once again landing on the carcass.
Ravens were among the few birds that stayed through the bitter cold of an entire Minnesota winter. Even their little brothers, the crows, would take off around New Year’s, and about the same time the very last of the bald eagles followed the rest of the local birds south to the Mississippi valley. Those that remained were the nuthatches and brown creepers, chickadees, several types of woodpeckers, blue jays, gray jays, and a few owls; birds that were almost never seen except at bird feeders. And the ravens. They were the exception. Big and pitch-black, they flew through all that whiteness, enduring the cold and eating their fill on road-kill deer.
Lance turned on the radio, getting nothing but white noise, as usual. The fact that it had suddenly worked fine outside the Akkola gas station was obviously just a fluke.
WITHOUT REALLY INTENDING TO, he’d arrived in Duluth. He had no idea where he was headed, but he had no desire to drive through more forested land. Finally he parked outside the health-food store on Fourth Street and went inside. It would be very unlikely for Lance Hansen to meet anyone he knew in a health-food store. He sat down in the small café area with a serving of vegetarian lasagna that didn’t taste half bad, a bottle of mineral water, and the latest issue of the Duluth News Tribune, which was available for customers to read free of charge. But he hadn’t sat there long before a headline in the paper made him go both hot and cold.
“Accused North Shore Murderer on Trial Soon.” That was the text in big letters above a mug shot of a long-haired and scowling Lenny Diver.
Lance read the article, which first gave an account of how Georg Lofthus was found dead near Baraga’s Cross the previous summer. It then stated that the trial of the accused Lenny Diver would start on February 28 in Minneapolis. According to the article, Diver continued to maintain his innocence, sticking by his explanation that he’d spent that night with a woman in Grand Marais, although he couldn’t remember her name because he’d been extremely drunk. The article also mentioned the prosecution’s trump card: the baseball bat that had been discovered in Lenny Diver’s car. The suspect’s fingerprints had been found on the bat, along with blood from the victim. Lance knew that the initials “A.H.” were carved into the wood, and he was almost positive that the bat belonged to his brother. But he wasn’t as certain how the bat had ended up in Diver’s car and with his fingerprints on it.
He’d suddenly lost his appetite. This was the first time he’d seen the face of the man who was about to be sent to prison for life. Diver looked older than his twenty-five years. Probably because of a hard life, in general, and his methamphetamine habit, in particular. Yet in spite of how wretched he looked in the picture, there was something about him, a certain strength or energy that seemed to shine through everything else; the word “radiance” occurred to Lance.
He’d actually planned to sit here for a while, enjoying the feeling of being back in his hometown, but right now he felt miserable. The photo of the accused man had literally put a face on the injustice he had committed. The only person who could save Lenny Diver from prison was Lance, but he was not going to do it. The face in the newspaper kept on staring at him with that dark, imperious expression. Finally he couldn’t take it anymore. He got out his cell and tapped in a number that he, as a police officer, had in his contact list. The phone rang for a long time before anyone picked up.
“Minnesota Department of Corrections. How can I help you?” said a morose male voice.
“This is Lance Hansen. I’m an officer with the U.S. Forest Service in the Superior National Forest. I would like to visit an inmate.”
“And does this inmate have a name?” said the man sarcastically.
“Lenny Diver,” replied Lance.
He could hear the guy in Minneapolis repeating the name to himself as he presumably searched his computer.
“Lenny Diver is in the Moose Lake jail. And your name again was . . . ?”
“Lance Hansen.”
; “Right. First we have to ask the prisoner if he wants to see you. We’ll get back to you in a few days.”
Lance thanked the man and ended the call.
Then he sat there, staring at the newspaper photo. What had he done? Was he really going to look the man in the eye and talk to him? That suddenly seemed impossible. It was probably best not to think about it anymore. Maybe they wouldn’t even call him back.
He gave a start as he caught sight of a familiar face. Stepping into the store was Peggy Winters, the biologist at the Tofte Ranger Station. Her cheeks were rosy, and she had on her usual fur hat. Lance turned away. He hoped she wouldn’t come into the café area! The instant she saw him, his bluff would be called. After a moment he took a chance and looked over his shoulder, but he couldn’t see her so she must have gone farther inside the store. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t come over here after she’d made her purchases.
He needed to leave right now. Peggy’s sudden appearance had given him a shock, and he felt a strong urge to find a dark place where he could sit all alone, nursing a beer. This time he went to the only place in Duluth where he could be a hundred percent sure that no one he knew would turn up.
6
THE KOZY BAR was a notorious gathering place for criminals and prostitutes. A good number of crimes had been committed over the years in the vicinity of this establishment. Yet Lance knew that the bar was completely harmless this early in the day, especially since he had a police ID in his wallet. He made sure the bartender caught a glimpse of it when he paid for his beer. The man briefly raised one eyebrow when he saw the ID. Lance kept his expression impassive as he picked up the pint glass and went over to a corner table to sit down. The Kozy was located half a flight below street level, and the narrow windows near the ceiling had green-tinted glass, which let in very little light. Aside from Lance, the only customers were two long-haired men at the other end of the room about thirty years old who looked like they might be American Indians. A cup of coffee sat on the table in front of each of them. There was something about the way they were slouched in their chairs that told him they’d been there a long time.
The Ravens (Minnesota Trilogy) Page 2