Detective Inspector Huss: A Huss Investigation set in Sweden, Vol. 1 (29 page)

Krister was snoring heavily next to her. He didn’t have to be at work until nine. With a thrill of joy she remembered that tonight they were going to have a cozy evening together. She would peel potatoes and make the salad. Maybe open a bottle of wine. He would create something delicious at the stove and graciously accept her applause. She had nothing against applauding, as long as she got out of making dinner. She lay back down, tried to push the dog aside, but he just rolled around on his back with his paws in the air and pretended to be asleep. Which he soon was. Dog and master began to snore to the beat of a schottische. With a sigh she realized she might as well get up.

 

THE DREAM had been clear as glass. She remembered all the details as sharp as a knife. You didn’t have to be a trained dream analyst to understand its meaning. Was she really so distressed about the twins becoming independent? She was filled with a sense of powerlessness, the feeling that she could no longer protect them against every danger. Something she had read or heard occurred to her: “You can never teach your children to grow up based on your own experiences. As a parent you can only try to hide your sorrow and worry. Try to offer careful guidance when things go awry. Be available.”

She felt a pang in her heart and grimaced at the dense November darkness outside her windshield. Even though the road was almost deserted, she drove below the speed limit, not her usual habit. Why was she having such a hard time shaking off that dream? Could it be because she had seen so much misery during her years as a cop? Youths, mercilessly kicked out of society, who died violent deaths and were mourned by few or none. They were victims of poverty, unemployment and hopelessness, the wrong friends, and drugs. Or else they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Like John. She shivered at the memory of one of her most trying experiences as a cop.

She and Tommy had been loaned out to the Kungälv Police to assist in the investigation of the murder of John, age fourteen. It had happened in August, in unusually warm and fine weather. John and a friend had gone to Ingetorps Lake to go camping. In the evening four skinheads showed up. At least two of them were seriously drunk. The only one of them who actually knew John was a fifteen-year-old who went to the same school and had been following and bullying him for a long time. The other three had never seen John before. In the next two hours the four skinheads played a grim game of cat and mouse. Sometimes they were “nice” and sometimes they abused John and his friend. They threw John in the lake, but when he started to swim away they forced his friend to yell, “Please, John, come back. They’re going to beat me!” He went back and thus saved his friend’s life. Then he himself was kicked unconscious and thrown into the lake. As he drowned, they rolled cigarettes and stood talking on the beach.

She suddenly realized that she was clenching her teeth so hard that her jaws ached. Her grip on the steering wheel was so hard her fingers were cramping. Memory refused to loosen its grip: the sniggering skinheads during the trial who seemed unmoved as they whispered and rustled their papers. The attorneys who talked about leniency for the young killers: They could be damaged for life. The fact that they had already taken an even younger life suddenly didn’t seem so important. The parents’ unspeakable despair. The mother’s bitter whisper outside the courtroom: “They plead for leniency for the defendants, but not for the victim. There’s no sense of respect or morality.”

Irene swung into the parking garage at police headquarters, turned off the engine, but remained sitting in her car. The projection of her memories was still playing against the windshield of her car. The pictures that the prosecutor showed of John’s mangled body: The boy had injuries over his entire body, but the perps had mostly aimed for his face. His head was swollen, eyes glued shut, and his lips split. His head and neck were a grotesque violet-black color from internal bleeding. After this senseless lethal beating, he was unrecognizable.

Many of the spectators couldn’t stand it, but left the courtroom crying. The despairing father had had enough. He stood up and screamed at the four unmoved skinheads, “Look at him now, for God’s sake!”

Several of them raised their heads, but didn’t look at the slide screen. The fifteen-year-old stared straight ahead with an ice-cold expression. None of them batted an eye when the prosecutor related how they had gone about the murder.

She had seen primal instincts reverberating through the parents. Revenge! Revenge! But was there any justice in a case like this? Over the years she had often asked herself that question, but never found a satisfactory answer. Maybe there wasn’t any.

Why were these painful memories coming up just now? Evidently it was because of the CD she had stepped on as she sneaked in through the front door around midnight. The disc had fallen out of Jenny’s open school bag. First she stuffed it back in the bag, but a subconscious signal made her pull it out again. Yes, she had seen correctly in the weak light of the hall lamp. There was a swastika on the cover. The group’s name seemed to be “Swastika.” It took great self-control to quell the impulse to rush into Jenny’s room and ask what this meant! She peeked in through the doorway as she always did and saw her little girl sound asleep, with her golden blond hair spread over the pillow. It would have to wait until this evening. Or tomorrow. This evening was their night for cocooning, they had decided.

A glance at the dashboard told her that it was almost seven. Time to go up and write a report on yesterday’s trip to Stockholm. It was not going to be easy.

 

THE REPORT was as good as done when Tommy Persson and Hannu Rauhala arrived simultaneously. They each took a cup of coffee and sat down for a run-through of yesterday’s events. Before they started the superintendent showed up. He looked worn out, with red eyes and a grayish complexion, but no one commented on his appearance. They had been awaiting his arrival, with plastic cup, from the coffee vending machine. It was crowded around Irene’s desk. Naturally there was a big coffee stain on the first page of the report, but she could print out another one later. Everything was saved on the diskette marked VON KNECHT.

Andersson started by telling them about his suspicion that the charred body at Pathology belonged to Pirjo. After a dejected silence Irene asked, “But what about the body of that guy?”

It was Tommy who answered. “Evidently he’s on one of the upper floors. The arson techs haven’t dared search up there yet, but they’ll get to it this weekend. Pelle said it’s quite certain that it was a ‘devil bomb.’ Whoever built it wanted to make sure it was done right. There wasn’t anything left undamaged in the whole building. Except von Knecht’s safe, which is cemented inside the wall and awkward to get at. Pelle mentioned taking a skylift over there. By the way, I haven’t been able to interview the elderly couple on the second floor. They were bandaged up at Mölndal Hospital on Wednesday, stayed overnight, and then were released to stay with their daughter. But on Thursday morning the man had to be admitted again. Heart attack. He’s in CIC in very serious condition. His wife has collapsed. The daughter is very upset and asked me to wait to talk to her mother until Monday.”

Hannu asked, “CIC?”

“Cardiac intensive care. I’m keeping in touch with the retired couple, because I suspect they may have heard or seen something that has to do with the bomb. To make a bomb that big, a lot of equipment would have had to be dragged in. The gasoline containers in particular should have been noticed.”

Andersson cleared his throat. “Are there any witnesses who noticed anything suspicious in recent days?”

“No, and that’s strange. Nobody can think of any mysterious person or remember hearing anything odd. There’s only one statement that sounds interesting. An elderly man in the building next door to von Knecht’s, address on Sten Sturegatan, has his bedroom window on the second floor facing the courtyard. Outside the window there are some rented parking places, one of which is von Knecht’s. According to this gentleman, von Knecht parked his Porsche in that parking space just before one in the morning on Saturday.”

“On Friday night, you mean?”

“Right. And he’s positive. It was the Porsche. There aren’t that many Porsche Targas around, now that the happy-go-lucky eighties are over for most people. I called up Sylvia von Knecht yesterday afternoon and asked if that could be right. According to her it’s absolutely impossible. Apparently there was a preanniversary get-together on Friday night. Nobody went to bed before one-thirty in the morning, except Sylvia’s old mother. Even if she didn’t like her son-in-law, I don’t think the old lady would take the Porsche and zip down to Berzeliigatan to rig up a bomb. And clearly no one else from the preparty did either. Sylvia got mad as hell at me when I asked if Richard was drunk on Friday night. Finally it came out that he was obviously plastered.”

Andersson remembered what Stridner had told him at yesterday’s meeting. It seemed that von Knecht drank a good deal toward the end of his life. To establish the chronology he asked, “He was with the others until one-thirty?”

“Yes.”

There was a long silence as all four of them tried to figure out some angle. Anyway, it was obvious. Irene was the one who took it up for discussion.

“The car. The Porsche. How could it be on Berzeliigatan that night? Where was it parked earlier in the evening?”

“I asked Sylvia where the car was now. According to her, it’s in a locked garage on Molinsgatan. Just like her own car, a BMW,” Tommy replied.

“So it hasn’t been stolen, but was put back in its garage. Is it certain that it was von Knecht’s Porsche and not someone else’s?”

Tommy shrugged his shoulders. “The old guy on Sten Sturegatan claimed it was von Knecht’s,” he said curtly.

Again a thoughtful silence descended over the meeting. Finally the superintendent slapped the palm of his hand on the table, which put another coffee stain on Irene’s report, and exclaimed, “It’s some damned phantom sneaking around, going through locked doors, and taking locked cars. And putting them back! Without leaving a trace. Up in smoke!”

Hannu caught his eye. “More keys.”

Andersson fell silent and took on an absentminded look of concentration. The others also realized that it was the only explanation. Irene said enthusiastically, “Of course that’s it! There has to be an extra key to the car and the garage. By the way, Sylvia said that Richard had been searching for the spare key to the Porsche the week before he died. On the same key ring there’s a key to the garage. There must also be another set of keys to the doors in von Knecht’s building on Molinsgatan and the building on Berzeliigatan. But Sylvia told me that there were only three sets of keys to the two apartments. I saw them myself; she has all three key rings at home in her apartment.”

Andersson looked at Irene after her input. Thoughtfully he said, “Sylvia certainly didn’t know about any more keys. He had a whole bunch of secrets, our fine Herr von Knecht. There must be another set of keys. Which the killer is now walking around with. Plus the spare keys to the Porsche and the garage.”

As the words sank in, Irene understood the threat. “That means that Sylvia shouldn’t be staying in the apartment before the locks are changed,” she said.

“Precisely.” Andersson made a calming gesture. “But we can lie low over the weekend. She’s at Marstrand with Henrik, after all. As long as the murderer doesn’t have keys to that house too.”

Irene gave a start and exclaimed, “Wait a minute. There
were
keys to the Marstrand house on the key rings! We can’t lie low. We have to warn her.”

An anxious furrow creased Andersson’s brow. “Irene, try to get hold of her right away.”

She nodded and felt a slight uneasiness inside. Sylvia might be in danger. An obvious question popped up, demanding an answer. “But who would have access to a whole set of keys to von Knecht’s various houses and cars?” she wondered.

All of them tried to figure out an answer. Finally Hannu said, “Richard von Knecht.”

At first Andersson was visibly irritated, but he had to admit the logic of Hannu’s conclusion. “And who would he give the keys to?”

Nobody had a good answer, and they dropped the subject after a while.

Irene reported on her trip to Stockholm. Her colleagues had plenty of comments about her excursion: Was it really necessary to spend a lot of taxpayers’ money going up to Stockholm? Did Mona Söder stand to inherit? Why couldn’t she have said all that on the phone? Could Mona have flown down to Göteborg on Tuesday afternoon and back the same evening? Or driven it in her fast new car?

With a dismissive gesture Irene tried to answer the questions one by one. “It was actually not so dumb of her to demand that I come up and see Jonas with my own eyes. Jonas is dying, and she has been by his side every evening. Now she’s on vacation, so she can stay with him around the clock. I’ve checked with the hospital staff and they say she was there on Tuesday evening. According to the switchboard at her job she was there all day Tuesday. The Audi has only gone thirty-two hundred kilometers. I’m actually quite convinced of her innocence. We don’t have to waste more resources by checking up on her and Jonas. They just want to be left in peace. To your question, Hannu: Yes, Mona will inherit Jonas’s share of Richard von Knecht’s estate, that’s the law. But she doesn’t need his money and doesn’t want anything to do with the von Knecht family. Can we keep her and Jonas out of the official reports to the media?”

She addressed this question to Andersson in an almost entreating tone of voice. He looked at her, surprised, but then nodded briefly.

“We’ll have to trust your intuition for the time being, until something turns up. From what I understand, Jonas isn’t going anywhere. And his mother isn’t either,” he said crassly.

Energetically he slapped his palm on the table again, so that his cup fell over and the last drops of coffee trickled across Irene’s report. With a sigh she acknowledged that she would have to print out a whole new one. Andersson didn’t notice, but turned to Tommy.