Island Getaway, An Art Crime Team Mystery (13 page)

“She’s fine.” He hoped. “This is
just hard for her. Her father died, and she’s making this sort of
pilgrimage in his honor...”

“She told me,” Lena said. “She
said Gustav knew him. That’s why she wanted to talk to him
again.”

“Again?”

“They met in the tavern last
night,” Lena said. “They talked for a minute, but she thought he
might be willing to tell her more when she was alone. And when he
wasn’t drunk.”

A drunk?
Great
. “You know the
guy?”

“Gustav? Of course.” She smiled,
just a bit fondly, as one might over a slow but endearing child.
“He’s one of our characters. Always wandering around with a metal
detector looking for treasure. Found some once, too. It’s in the
museum now.”

“Is he dangerous?”

Lena shook her head. “No harm in
him. Just a simple old man who lives by himself.”

Good to know.

“I’ll be back.” Nick wheeled
the—red—bike through the courtyard toward the street.

“Take care,” Lena said. “Watch for
cars.”

Nick nodded. Although the cars
were really the least of his worries. There weren’t many of them,
and less as he made his way out of town. Like most kids, he’d
learned how to ride a bike ages ago, and he still remembered how,
but it had been a while since he’d taken an actual bike ride
through the countryside. And when he did, he preferred something a
bit more aerodynamic than this.

But it got him where he was going,
and faster than if he’d been on foot. He kept an eye out for Annika
as he pedaled along, the surface under his wheels changing from
city street to meandering two-lane country road, but there was no
sign of her. Pretty soon he was outside Visby, out of sight of the
buildings and the ocean, in the middle of pastoral Swedish
countryside. Nothing but trees and grass and the occasional cow as
far as the eye could see.

He’d been pedaling for about
fifteen minutes by the time the small red cottage—a
stuga
, as his
mother would have said—appeared in the distance. That had to be it.
There hadn’t been any others like it. Not so far.

He turned the bike onto an
overgrown track leading off the side of the road. And jumped off
the bike, just in time to avoid falling head first over the
handlebars when the front tire got stuck in a rut and wrenched
sideways.

Hell!

It’d be a long walk back to Visby
if the rim was bent. Although he didn’t take the time to check,
just left the bike in the grass and headed for the front of the
house. “Annika?”

There was no answer. Everything
was quiet. Very quiet. Just the sound of his footsteps rustling the
grass and the buzzing of flies.

Nick swallowed something that felt
like his heart and tried again, fear edging his voice.
“Annika!”

This time something happened.
There was a scramble from inside the house, and then a slim figure
with flowing blonde hair burst out of the door and stumbled into
his arms, red hands held high.

“What the hell?”

He got his arms up in time
to catch her, but not before noticing that she was dressed in a
pair of skimpy shorts that made her legs look like everything he’d
imagined plus some, and a T-shirt with the words
“
Librarians do it
quietly
” across the front. That alone was
enough to take some of his concentration away, and then there was
her hair, left down and flowing down her back like crumpled silk.
Her eyes were enormous behind the glasses, wide with fear and then
with relief.

“Nick!” She sagged against him,
and for a second he held her there, tight against his chest. She
was trembling, long shudders racking her body, and her breaths were
fast and shallow, as if she’d run a long distance instead of just
from inside the house and out to meet him.

“What’s wrong?” He asked it
against her hair, and although he knew he had to let her go, when
she stepped back, he wanted to hold on.

And then her words penetrated.
“He’s dead.”

Dead?

He dropped his arms. “Gustav?”

She nodded. “Come. See.”

She turned back to the house. He
reached out and grabbed her. “Wait.”

“What?”

“You shouldn’t go in there.”

“I’ve already been in there. What
do you think this is?” She lifted her hands, and now he saw what
his subconscious had already recognized: that her palms were
covered with blood.

“What the hell happened?”

She drew back a little at the
vehemence in his voice. “Nothing!”

“Did he attack you?”

She tossed her head, and that
silken hair floated out and settled on the other side of her
shoulder. “Of course not. He was like this when I got here.”

“Like what?”

He shook his head and resisted the
temptation to pinch the bridge of his nose to ward off the headache
he could feel coming on. “Don’t answer that. Just stay here. Let me
go look.”

She nodded, teeth sunk into her
bottom lip again. Nick gentled his voice another degree. “It’ll be
OK. I’ll take care of it. Just wait a minute.”

He didn’t stop to see if she
obeyed, just turned on his heel—away from that lip, which shouldn’t
distract him right now, with more important things to think about,
but which still managed to play merry hell with his libido—and
headed onto the stone slab in front of the door.

A big, fat fly buzzed by his head
when he walked in. It took a few seconds for his eyes to get used
to the gloom after the bright sunshine outside, but then he could
see that he was in a small entry. A door to the left stood open,
and when he passed through, he was in a combination living room and
kitchen. A bank of cabinets and drawers, probably installed when
the cottage was built, stood up against the far wall, with a
half-circular sink hanging beside. A small table and two chairs
were under the window, the table covered by a 1960s printed
tablecloth, and closest to him, a threadbare sofa sat in front of a
chipped teak table. Over in the corner, a fat-bellied wood-burning
stove squatted, a small stack of wood beside it. The only other
piece of furniture was an overstuffed recliner, and that’s where
the body was. Best as Nick could make out, Gustav—assuming it was
the homeowner he was looking at, and not a guest—had been shot
through the chest at fairly close range and hadn’t stood a chance
of survival. He’d probably died almost instantly. His eyes were
still open, looking vaguely surprised, and a handful of flies were
buzzing around, feasting on the blood.

Working for the FBI’s Art Crime
Team didn’t usually afford a lot of opportunity to observe violent
crime up close and personal. For the past four years, Nick’s life
had been very white-collar and orderly: he’d spent most of his time
wearing nice suits and pretending to have a lot of money and a
serious penchant for collecting illegal art. Most art theft was
committed for profit, and most of the artwork that was stolen
eventually showed up for sale somewhere. His job was to find it,
pretend to want it, and then arrest the people involved. The
robbery of the Visby museum was unique in that regard—the treasure
had never been seen again—but he figured Carl Magnusson had
probably run scared after having had to shoot the security guard.
The silver had likely been moldering in a shoebox in Brooklyn for
the past thirty years.

That wasn’t the point anyway. Not
right now. It had been a long time since he’d had to deal with a
violent death. Usually he took care of things before they got to
that point. But his first few years with the bureau had been spent
as a field agent, and it wasn’t difficult to slip back into the
mindset.

Make sure the body’s really
dead.

Not much doubt this time, but he
put his fingers to the man’s throat and kept them there for long
enough to determine that there was no pulse. The skin was coldish
and a bit clammy to the touch.

Cause of death looked like a slug
to the chest. Maybe two. It was hard to be certain, with all the
blood. The local M.E., or Swedish equivalent, would make sure.

Murder weapon?

He glanced around, but saw no gun.
Definitely not suicide, then. Not that suicides usually shot
themselves in the chest. It was usually through the mouth or temple
when someone wanted to end their own lives.

Time of death?

The blood was still tacky, but by
no means free-flowing. Twelve hours, give or take?

So Annika was off the hook. She
had left Lena’s about an hour ago, and Gustav had been dead much
longer than that. And twelve hours ago, she’d been tucked safely in
bed. He’d double-check with Lena when they got back to town. But at
least he didn’t have to worry that she’d had any part in this.

There was nothing he could
do for Gustav, and he probably shouldn’t spend any more time than
necessary dropping hairs and skin follicles on the crime scene, so
he went back outside, half expecting Annika to be gone. She wasn’t.
She was still standing where he’d left her, her arms wrapped around
herself as if for warmth, covering that suggestive,
“
Librarians do it
quietly
.” Her face was pale, her eyes huge
behind the glasses, and she was back to worrying her bottom lip
with her teeth.

“Stop that.”

She blinked. “What?”

“Gnawing on your lip. One of these
days you’ll bite a hole in yourself.”

She flushed. “What are you doing
here?”

“Looking for you. Have you called
the police?”

She shook her head. “I couldn’t
find a phone.”

“You don’t have a cell phone?”
What kind of person left home without a cell phone these days?

“I have one,” Annika said. “But it
doesn’t have international capabilities. I can use it at home, but
not here.”

“
Hang on.” He pulled out his
own phone—which he could use anywhere in the world, thank God—and
made the necessary call before turning back to her. “What
are
you
doing here?”

He had heard Lena’s explanation;
now he wanted hers.

“He knew my father,” Annika
said.

“Is that him in there? Gustav?”
Best make sure of that before he asked anything else.

She nodded. “I met him last night.
I asked if he knew my father, and he said they’d grown up together,
but he didn’t seem to want to talk. So I thought if I came back
today, alone, when he hadn’t been drinking...” She trailed off.

“And what happened when you got
here?” He was pretty sure he already knew, but he wanted to hear
her say it.

She bit her lip again, and then
flushed when she realized he was staring pointedly at her mouth. “I
overslept again. The jetlag, I guess. And the...”

“The...?” Nick prompted when she
trailed off once more.

She glanced at him, a quick look
through the lenses. “How did you know I was here?”

“I spoke to Lena,” Nick said.

She nodded. “So you know what
happened at the other hotel. Someone tore through my room last
night while I was out. Between that and the time difference, I
guess I’m just having a hard time getting to sleep and getting up.
So I woke up late. And it took a while to walk out here. I thought
he’d left. But when I knocked on the door, it opened. So I went
in.”

Could have happened to anyone.
Although he had to admit he was a little surprised that this timid
little mouse had resorted to what was essentially breaking and
entering.

Although, given the T-shirt—and
God, the shorts!—maybe she wasn’t as timid as he’d imagined.

“And you found him in there?”

She nodded. “He was just sitting
there. Like he’d fallen asleep. Except his eyes were open. And the
blood—” She shuddered.

“You touched him?”

“I had to make sure he was dead.”
She flushed. “I mean...”

“I know what you mean.”

They stood for a second in
silence. She was back to nibbling on her bottom lip. This time he
didn’t comment, just waited for her to speak. She wanted to, he
imagined; she just didn’t know where to start. No big surprise
there. It was a lot to take in.

Eventually she just blurted it
out. “I don’t understand what’s going on. Ever since I arrived in
Sweden, it’s been one thing after another. My bag being lost, my
rooms being searched—both here and in Stockholm. You. And now
this.”

Him? The rest of it, yeah, he
could see why it would add up in her mind and equal trouble. She
wasn’t stupid. But— “What do you mean, me?”

She shot him a look through the
glasses. “Someone like you wouldn’t bother with someone like me in
the usual course of things. Something’s going on, and you’re part
of it.”

Shit
.

In the distance, he could hear the
sound of sirens. There was no time now to figure out what to tell
her. “I’ll explain. Later.” After the police arrived and talked to
them and let them go again. Then he’d sit her down and lay it all
out. She wasn’t part of it. He had to trust that, trust his
instincts.

And besides, if he was wrong and
she was in it up to her ears, she’d already know everything he’d be
telling her anyway.

“After we’re done here, I’ll tell
you everything. I promise.”

She nodded, but didn’t speak. Just
looked at him. He looked back. She was so pale, almost transparent,
her eyes worried behind the lenses. Nick let his gaze drop down to
her chest.

“Nice shirt.”

She flushed.
Good. Put some color in her
cheeks
.

“My brother gave it to me,” she
muttered. “I guess he thought it was funny.”

“Why?” Beyond the obvious?

She shrugged. “I shouldn’t have
worn it, I guess. But I figured... nobody knows me here. They don’t
know whether it’s true or not.”