Norwegian by Night

by Derek B. Miller

  In the mirror above the sink she sees the shower curtain. It is closed.

  Turning, she takes out her nightstick. The curtain has moved since she came into the room.

  Her backup should be on the way. The police station is not far.

  Sigrid takes her flashlight from her belt and, rather than push the curtain away, she steps back to the bathroom door, switches off the light, and then shines the flashlight at the white ceiling above the bathtub, illuminating the white curtain.

  There are no shadows cast. There is no one inside.

  Switching the light back on, she now moves the shower curtain to the side, just to be sure, finds it empty, and then leaves the bathroom, switching off the light behind her.

  The living room has been carefully preserved by her detectives. There is evidence of a struggle everywhere. The fragments of fragile objects are clustered closer to the spot of the murder. The woman’s final moments were spent suffocating and with a knife in her chest, lying over the back of the coffee table in front of the sofa. Her blood has dripped down the sides, and soaked into the white floorboards.

  He had the leverage here. Once she was on her back, he pressed his knee on her. The hatred was personal and remorseless.

  The downstairs room is less a cellar than another room to the apartment. The building itself accommodates the slight drop in the land that explains the odd floor plan.

  The room is orderly. The bed is made. On a red chair there is a black suit, a white shirt, and a grey tie, as though waiting to be filled with a mourner. She opens the wooden dresser. There are a few sweaters, trousers, and pieces of underwear.

  On the nightstand by his bed there is a lamp, and at its base is an antique silver picture-frame. It folds on tiny hinges. In its left side is a black-and-white picture, taken maybe fifty years ago of a woman who was almost Sigrid’s age. She had dark hair and the sorts of eyes that women only had in the 1950s. She is petite, and is sitting on a stone wall with one leg up. A white sneaker rests on top of a park bench below her along the wall, and she’s laughing. It looks like autumn. It is probably his wife — the one who died back in America and prompted his move here.

  On the right is a young man, probably a teenager. He is slender, and has the same eyes as the woman. This one is a colour photograph and is slightly out of focus. It may have been taken quickly or with a cheap camera, like a Polaroid Land camera or even an old Minox. His arms and legs are crossed as he leans against a 1968 Mustang. It is baby blue, and he is smiling as though he designed and built it himself.

  The only other item on the night table is a jacket patch placed carefully against the base of the lamp opposite the photos. It is drab green with a thin, red trim, and looks worn. It is the motto of the US Marine Corps.

  Semper Fidelis.

  Always faithful.

  ‘Where the hell have you gone to, Mr Horowitz?’ Sigrid says aloud to herself. ‘Why are you missing and what are you doing?’

  Just before leaving Sheldon’s room, Sigrid drops to one knee and looks under the bed. And, for the first time, something seems off.

  There is a large pink jewellery box with a silver lock on the front. The midday light reflects off the floor, and she sees it easily.

  She reaches under and pulls it out.

  Staying on one knee, she fiddles with the latch. It doesn’t open. With her Leatherman knife she could easily pry it off and open the box, but that — for the moment — isn’t the point.

  Sigrid looks again at the woman in the picture frame — at her white sneaker, her fine wristwatch, her white collar tipping out of a V-neck sweater. She has a wide smile. Her universe is full of possibilities. It must have been taken in the late 1950s. Sheldon was back from Korea. Her son was probably about five or six then. She had her figure and her grace. The bad things in her life hadn’t happened yet.

  Would this box belong to her?

  Sigrid takes out a small black notepad and flips quickly to the interview with Rhea and Lars. She flips a few more times.

  There. Her husband was a watch repairman and antique salesman.

  She looks again at the pink box.

  No way.

  And then it occurs to her what she’d forgotten to do upstairs. She’d forgotten to look for a match to the key that Senka died with in her pocket.

  Had all the officers forgotten to do that? If they had, she’d raise hell at the office.

  If the match to that key was here in the apartment where she was murdered, it means she must have brought it down. It could have been stored here, but that would have meant Sigrid had been lied to and that Senka, Rhea, and Lars did all know each other. This does not seem likely. More likely is that Senka brought it here before she was killed. She hid it. The killer wanted it. It is part of the reason for her death. She protected herself and its contents. She fought to the death as her boy hid in the closet across from it.

  Whatever is in it must be important.

  This is Sigrid’s very last thought before a hard object strikes her on the head and she collapses to the ground.

  Chapter 14

  Kadri holds the huge D-battery Maglite in his hand and looks down at the woman cop he has just bludgeoned. He doesn’t like hitting women — though it doesn’t especially bother him, either — and she certainly hadn’t done anything to deserve it personally. But he needed that box, and he was pretty certain that asking her for it wouldn’t have done the trick.

  ‘You should have checked the closet,’ he says to her in English. ‘You check the shower, but not the closet. Who would stand in a shower? Everyone gets killed in a shower. Don’t you go to the movies? Psycho. Dead in the shower. The Mexican in No Country for Old Men. Dead in shower. Michelle Pfeiffer in What Lies Beneath. Almost dead in the shower, or in the bath, anyway. But she did that thing with her toe and got out OK. Still the shower, though.’

  He looks at his feet for a moment. Then he says, ‘Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. Dead in shower. John Travolta in Pulp Fiction. Very dead in shower. But never closets. I can’t think of anyone shot in a closet. This is why I hide in closets.’

  Kadri scratches his stomach. ‘So, look. I’m taking the box and going for a coffee. Get well soon.’

  Kadri checks her pulse, confirms that she’s alive, picks up the box, places it under his arm, and walks out the front door. He strides up the street directly past the police car, gets on his Vespa scooter, and heads directly to the nearest Kaffebrenneriet for a bun.

  It is good to see the process working as it should. Burim is infiltrating the Serbs with more than his penis, and will come back with valuable information. Gjon is collecting the guns that Enver asked for. The box — whatever is in it — has been recovered.

  The sun is shining, and the air is dry and bracing. If you wave your hands in front of your face, you can pull the summer into your lungs and feel its peace and serenity. Just what an accomplished man needs.

  And peaceful it is. There is no history here. No weight. No echoes or whispers of tragedy on the breeze. It is odd, really. Because, for Kadri, when he leaves Oslo itself and meets colleagues in other towns to talk politics, play cards, buy and sell drugs and the usual, he can feel the expanse of Scandinavia — the big sky, the vastness of the land — reveal itself. It is as though the lonely cannot fill that much space. It taunts them, spreads them too thinly.

  They should sing, like they do in the Balkans. And dance. Something in them, here, prevents them from expressing the few words that could free them, connect them, rejoin them to each other and the heavens. They should live life. And laugh at death.

  But they don’t. Their Lutheran cloaks smother them and take their voices away.

  Whatever is causing it, though, it is not history. There is no history here to speak of. Some old boats and a wooden church — that’s not history. This is the part of Euro
pe without a history. No Romans. No Christians. No Crusades. No religious wars. Only old gods and trolls and blondes wearing fur. Really, what’s to be depressed about?

  How I miss our sad songs sung together for joy!

  But now is not the time for sadness. Or joy. It is the time for coffee.

  Kadri rocks back and forth on his toes impatiently as a Swedish girl — here in Norway for the summer because of the higher wages — delicately pours the steamed and fluffed milk into his latte, leaving on top the signature flourish of the café.

  Kadri plops his forty kroner on the table and then stares deeply at the coffee.

  After a moment, the girl looks at it, too.

  Kadri looks up at her and says, ‘Why did you paint a vagina in my coffee?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Vagina. In my coffee. In the foamy bit.’

  ‘It’s a leaf.’

  ‘A leaf?’

  ‘Yes. A leaf.’

  ‘You ever seen a leaf like that?’

  They both consider the design in the coffee foam again.

  ‘It’s my first day,’ she says.

  ‘You were trying to make a leaf?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So it’s a leaf.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Keep the change.’

  A middle-aged couple pushing a lime-green pram stands to leave one of the wrought-iron tables, and Kadri springs for it. He gives a little chuckle as he wiggles into the chair.

  Ah, life. So many twists and turns. So much unexpected, and so little of it preventable. We do what we can to find balance. And to stay calm, we retreat to the simple pleasures. Like coffee and a good smoke.

  Once he’s well seated, Kadri whips out his iPhone and jabs at some little icons. He waits for Enver’s phone to ring.

  It rings a few more times than expected. Hell, who knows what Enver is doing from one minute to another? Besides, Kadri is going to do his part, be a good soldier, pay his respects. But he isn’t going to take the extra step towards making any of this his own problem. It isn’t his kid. Kadri didn’t kill anyone. Not in Norway, anyway. The sooner this all ends, the better. Let Zezake step into the process, if it comes to that. Kadri has the box. That’s enough for now.

  Enver picks up the telephone. He is breathy and humourless as ever.

  They speak in Albanian.

  ‘So, I got the box with the stuff in it.’

  ‘Was there any trouble?’

  ‘I hit a woman cop on the head, but she’s there, and the box and I are here. She’s alive. So, that’s pretty much that.’

  Enver is silent for a moment. He does this when he’s thinking. It makes Kadri cringe. If you know your mind, why not speak it?

  ‘They take that sort of thing seriously here.’

  ‘Look, Enver. Whatever, OK? I was behind her. Thump. Like the good fairy asked the bunny not to do to the field mice. She knows nothing. Can I open the box? It’s an ugly box. I’d like to get rid of the box.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No? No what? No, I can’t open it, or no, it’s not ugly? Because, believe you me, it’s ugly. It’s all pink with little silver …’

  ‘You can’t open it. I don’t want you losing anything. I assume it’s locked. I expect to find it locked when you bring it to me.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Glåmlia.’

  Kadri scratches his chest where the gold chain occasionally pinches some hairs.

  ‘Any chance that’s near Paris? I’d like to go to Paris.’

  ‘It’s near the Swedish border. Look it up on that stupid toy of yours.’

  ‘There’s something you should know.’

  Enver says nothing.

  ‘The box? It wasn’t in her flat. It was in the apartment where it happened. And I was right. An old man lives there. And I had to hide in the closet. And it smelled bad. Like somebody peed. Maybe an old man. Maybe a young boy. I’m thinking he peed because something scary was happening outside the closet. If it was a boy, then maybe the old man got him out of there later. So I think I was right about the old man. I think maybe he knows something. And I think maybe he even has the boy. It doesn’t tell us where to look. But it tells us where not to look, you know?’

  Enver hangs up without saying goodbye.

  These calls are so unsatisfying. Never a thank you.

  Yes, please, go back to Kosovo. Take your sullen attitude with you. The war is over.

  Just before he can take a sip of his coffee, Kadri feels a tap on his shoulder.

  He looks up and sees a uniformed police officer in his mid-thirties. He is wearing a blue shirt and tie.

  ‘What?’ Kadri says in English.

  ‘You’re under arrest.’

  ‘What are you talking about? I’m drinking coffee at a coffee shop. I’m smoking a cigarette outside, like everyone else.’

  ‘Like movies?’

  ‘What do you mean, “Do I like movies?”’

  Petter had been holding his walkie-talkie, and now he raises it to his mouth and says, in Norwegian, ‘Is that the guy? Is that the voice?’

  ‘That’s him,’ crackles Sigrid through the radio.

  Petter then tells Kadri he is under arrest, but Kadri begins to laugh.

  ‘You don’t have a gun. Why should I come with you? Because you have nice manners?’

  ‘Because they do.’

  Petter signals behind Kadri, and Kadri turns to see two very serious men in black flack-jackets holding Heckler & Koch MP5 9mm submachine guns.

  ‘That’s the Beredskapstroppen.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Delta force.’

  Petter sees Kadri’s smug face melt.

  ‘They’ll shoot me here, in the café?’

  ‘No,’ says Petter. ‘They’ll shoot you there, in the chest.’

  Then Petter leans in closely and whispers, ‘They are Santa’s little helpers. They know when you’ve been naughty or nice. And you’ve been very, very naughty.’

  ‘You’re maybe a little crazy, you know that?’ says Kadri.

  Petter walks back to the squad car and buckles into the driver’s seat. He adjusts the rear-view mirror so he can see Sigrid lying in the back, her head with an ice pack on it, and a foul expression on her face.

  ‘I’m supposed to take you to the hospital. You might have a concussion.’

  ‘I can’t. I’ve got work to do.’

  ‘Don’t be stubborn.’

  ‘I’m not being stubborn. I have to make calls and get this wrapped up. It would take me longer to explain it to you than to do it myself.’

  ‘You should probably call your father before this makes the newspapers.’

  ‘Oh, Christ. Does it have to make the papers?’

  Sigrid sees Petter shrug. ‘The police chief inspector was assaulted in connection to a murder,’ he says. ‘But I suppose you’re right. We can pretend it didn’t happen. Or, if it is in the reports, I’m sure Dagbladet won’t care very much.’

  Sigrid moans.

  And then her father calls.

  Sigrid looks at the phone. ‘Papa’ flashes on the screen. It is not merely a headache. She’s in terrible pain — a throbbing, pulsing, pounding, relentless jackhammer to the cerebral cortex.

  She curls into a foetal position in the back seat.

  ‘It’s my papa.’

  She sees Petter shake his head. ‘Better answer it. He never leaves the farm, but he always seems to know everything.’

  ‘He does have a way. Push the answer button for me. I can’t find it.’

  He hands her the phone.

  ‘Yah. Hi, Papa.’

  ‘So?’ he says.

  ‘So what?’
<
br />   ‘What happened?’

  It occurs to Sigrid at this moment, though she is unsure why, that the American saying ‘adding insult to injury’ surely derived from someone’s literal experience.

  ‘I got hit on the head.’

  There is a pause on the other end of the phone.

  She waits for it to end. But, oddly, the pause continues.

  ‘Papa?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You have nothing to say?’

  ‘Now that you ask … Why didn’t you bring a gun?’

  ‘I told you. I was hit on the head. I didn’t need a gun. I needed a helmet.’

  ‘Well, there’s no arguing with that, I suppose.’

  ‘Can we take this up again later, Papa? We need to regroup at the station, and try to see straight through this. And right now I need to throw up.’

  The search for the missing boat on the Oslo fjord required a helicopter, and required paperwork and phone calls that Sigrid was not able to file or make when she returned to the station. Petter had to take over the office management. Most of her energy was spent insisting that she didn’t want to go to the hospital.

  She either had a concussion or she didn’t have a concussion. If she had one, she shouldn’t sleep. At the police station she would not be able to sleep. So, clearly, being at the police station with a concussion was good for her health. If she did not have one, she did not need to be at the hospital. With aspirin and a cold pack, Sigrid was able to make a convincing argument — to herself — that her office was the only logical place for her to be.

  With the helicopter airborne, she was now receiving regular reports. The biggest decision had been whether to send it directly south towards Nesodden, or whether it was best to head south-west towards Drøbak and along the route towards Denmark.

  They chose the Drøbak direction in the end. If they took the more easterly route they would fly to Nesset or so, then turn west over land to meet up with the coast, and then travel south, backtrack, and take it north all the way back to the helipad. That would burn a lot of costly fuel, so the decision was to gamble on the Drøbak side, take it as far south as the boat engine could be expected to go, and, if they found nothing, fly overland to meet up with the Nesset area and head up towards Kjøya, Nebba, and the other hamlets in that area. Engines on that kind of boat typically had a 12-litre tank, and so guessing its range was rather straightforward.